Cameo images
by Procrastinator-starting2moro
Summary: We don't remember days, we remember moments. A series of James and Lily drabbles. Part 16, a missing scene from Deathly Hallows. The story of how the vase from Petunia was broken.
1. Ladylike

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

_**Cameo Images**_

(a collection of meaningless drabbles)

**1. Ladylike**

_(Seventh year)_

Sometimes James feels he is the woman in their relationship.

Lily has been sitting on James' bed in the dormitories for exactly twenty three minutes, waiting for _him_ to get ready for their date to Hogsmeade. James, at this precise moment in time, is trying on trousers. Many, _many_ trousers. Why James is trying on different trousers Lily cannot comprehend. For some reason he is undecided on what to wear. Lily has never met a boy so undecided about trousers in her entire life.

"Are these okay?" He approaches her, rearward, modelling his backside. Lily stares at him at a loss for words.

"Yeah, you're right," James answers after her thirty seconds of silence. He unzips the pair of jeans he's wearing, and when they're around his ankles, kicks them free from his feet. Then, he searches for another pair. There's no embarrassment changing in front of Lily; they're already comfortable with one another, despite only dating for a short while. This almost scares Lily; it's like they're already married.

"How about these?"

Lily looks up from swinging her feet off the edge of the bed and finds James is now modelling a new pair of trousers. They look exactly the same as the previous pair; same colour and same number of pockets, but Lily humours him by not pointing this out. "They're lovely, James," she tells him, though she can't see his head because he's bent over and stuck his arse in her face like a true gentleman, so she tells his bottom instead. Her hand drifts forward to cop a feel, but she has enough self-restraint to stop herself.

"Does my bum look alright?"

Lily blinks, several times. "Yes," she says, trying not to focus too hard on the absurdity of this conversation since he is a Marauder and normal conversations with Marauders are rarities. "Yes, your bum looks fine," she assures him.

"Are you sure?"

She continues to study the bottom inches from her nose. "Yes, it's a wonderful bottom, James." Her head cocks to one side, and it's as though his bum has taken her under some spell.

"Really?" replies James smugly.

"Yes. Squeezable, round, plump; however you would like to describe it."

"Do you think..." He pauses for a moment, and Lily urges him to carry on. "Do you think they make my arse look big?"

Lily's eyes bulge wide - _that _was a rather womanish question of her boyfriend to put to her.

"Erm…" James turns an adorable pink and mumbles, "We can go now."

He pulls Lily to her feet and they hurry out of the dorm, pretending the incident never happened.

* * *

"Your lips look dry."

It's this statement from Lily that makes James look up at her strangely from studying in the library. He finishes off the loop of the letter he is writing and asks Lily, "What?" while parting his mouth a little in confusion.

"Your lips," Lily says again, pointing to his mouth. "They look dry."

"Too much kissing," James offers an explanation accompanied by a rogue grin.

"Kissing what, a plunger?"

"A poo-lun-what?"

Lily gives up immediately. By now she should have learned to never make a joke involving something Muggle related to a Pureblood.

"Never mind," she says, and James scratches his head in bewilderment. Lily digs in her school bag and produces some lip balm. "Here." She hands him the small pot, hoping it will help him with his dehydrated lips problem and also distract him before he gets a headache trying to get his head around what a plunger is, along with its function. "Put that on your lips."

James examines the small pot between his thumb and forefinger for a moment. When he does apply the lipbalm to his mouth with such expertise, Lily can't help but wonder if he's done this before. After adding a thick layer of it to his lips - shinier than ever - he drops the pot of lip balm horror after realizing what he's just done.

"This is the equivalent of me putting on make-up, isn't it?" he says worrisomely.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't." Lily leans in and pecks his cheek.

"EVERYONE, PRONGS IS PUTTING ON LIPSTICK!"

Sadly, Sirius has entered the library (his first library visit in seven years, James notes in annoyance).

James also notes this as his second feminine moment of the week, another line added to an imaginary tally in his head.

* * *

The next day, he rakes a hand through his hair in front of the mirror in the boys' dormitory, clearly unsatisfied. His hair is doing 'mental things', not appearing the way he wants it (swoon-worthy). No spell or wizard product will sort it out. It is official: James Potter is having a bad hair day.

"Prongs," Sirius pops his head into the room because he is too lazy to check James' well being by stepping fully inside it. "I've been waiting for you in common room for more than half an hour. Are you coming for breakfast or what?"

"Wait," James says. "My hair." He prods a particular bit that looks askew and groans in frustration when it doesn't do what it's told. "It's doing mental things."

Sirius can't control the amusement flickering across his face. "You… you've been in here doing your hair all this time?"

James snaps his head from the mirror to glower at Sirius. "Yes," he snarls.

Sirius barks a familiar laugh like the dog he is. "Women," he says, before slamming the door shut, his laughter echoing down the staircase.

James marks down the third line in the imaginary tally in his mind.

* * *

At some point James gives up with his hair and goes to breakfast. Sitting next to Lily eating cereal in the Great Hall, he tries to concentrate on eating his toast, but something about Lily's appearance is bothering him, and it'll keep bothering him until he fixes it.

"The collar of you shirt is on the wonk," he says.

"Hmm?" replies Lily distractedly, about to spoonful some cornflakes into her mouth, when unexpectedly James yanks her forward. Lily yelps as her elbows nearly land in her bowl of food. James pushes down her collar until it's neat and presentable, fiddling with her tie until it's perfect. His actions appearing oddly like one of a housewife. Once satisfied, he releases his girlfriend.

The entire group sitting around him stare bizarrely at him. It doesn't take long for James to comprehend the full magnitude of what he's done this time.

"James is a lady," Sirius says through a mouthful of toast.

A fourth line is made on the imaginary tally.

* * *

"I've been having stomach cramps all day," James complains in Transfiguration.

A fifth line is made.

* * *

"James, your chest seems to be… sticking out more than usual."

A sixth.

* * *

"James, have you seen my _Witches Weekly_ magazine?" Lily asks inside the boys' dormitory.

"Nope."

"Are you sure? I think I left it here yesterday."

"No. Sorry." James looks across the room at her apologetically. Lily sighs in disappointment and tells him she'll be back soon after searching for the reading material in her own dorm.

James stares hard at the magazine that is creeping from under his pillow.

A seventh line is made, after screaming internally for several minutes.

* * *

The female habits have been happening for at least a week now.

"C-c-c-c-c…."

James cannot even say the word 'cold' at this moment (or was the word 'cod'? He can't remember). He stands by Lily's side at the Great Lake. The clouds are ominously grey, miserable weather reflecting his dejected mood (one can only imagine being a male and acting like a female isn't pleasant – unless one prefers the new adopted characteristics). Walks in Hogwarts Grounds are the only ways the couple can get real privacy without someone complaining about public displays of affection, except James is currently turning blue.

Teeth chattering fast, Lily worries that he's ruining his pearly whites she's always admired. "Are you okay?"

"I-I-I-I-I…." James is so cold he can't even complete his sentences. "I'm fine," he gasps, despite the fact that he knows his genitals must be frozen. _Stupid pillock_, he tells himself, _should have brought my robe_. He rubs his arms so fiercely in attempt of warmth he causes scram marks to his skin.

Heaving a sigh, Lily takes off her robes. "Here," she says softly, handing the item of clothing to him. Stubbornly, James refuses to take it, shaking his head at her.

"Stop being noble," Lily berates him. He looks close on death. "James, for goodness' sake." She grabs him before he can escape, then drapes the robe around his shoulders before he can argue any further.

"What about you?" he asks.

"I'm robust," Lily tells him proudly. She doesn't look a stretch on cold at all, James notices with amazement. Evans women are stronger than they look. "Ill manage, you silly _woman_-"

James snaps. "Will you stop!"

"What?" Lily looks at him with amused bemusement.

"My ego has taken a serious bruising this past week. I feel like I'm the girl in this relationship! It's bloody humiliating."

The corners of Lily's mouth tug upwards at the colour of James'cheeks: bright red.

"Did you know-" she hooks her arms around his neck "-all men are _sort of_ half woman anyway because of the 'X' chromosome you have?"

"No, I didn't know that, but thanks for informing that it's scientifically proven I am half a woman, and so is fellow man."

"My pleasure," Lily replies, admiring his surly pout. "Anyway, I find your feminine behaviour rather endearing."

"Lily, I stole your girly magazine! It's not endearing, it's plain loony."

Her arms fall from his shoulders. "You stole my magazine?"

"Yes!" James cries, looking the peak of insanity. "I was reading the article on exercises to getting a firmer bottom."

"I thought we discussed this already, James, your bottom is fine."

"I know, but sometimes when I'm walking I wonder if my bottom is making ripples in the air—"

"I love you," Lily cuts him off, kissing James' earlobe, and he immediately shuts up. Lily has told him this statement plenty of times, but James likes it when she tells him she loves him in that small whisper of hers, the one that makes him shiver pleasurably. "I love you, your little paranoia about your delectable bum—"

"Squeezable, it is," James puts in.

"—and I love all the ever so slight womanly habits you comprise." A smirk creeps upon her face. "Just don't grow bigger bosoms than me or anything," she warns him mischievously.

"Har har," James says, before swooping down to kiss her. They get so carried away that they nearly stumble and fall into the Great Lake.

"Padfoot," a bored Remus calls Sirius' name from behind the bush they are spying James and Lily, on the other side of Hogwarts Grounds. "When are we going to tell Prongs we put that Womanly Curse on him?"

"Two more weeks, I swear," Sirius promises, a pair of impressive binoculars held to his eyes. "I'll stop the spell when he gets the menstruation." Remus shoots him a repulsed look at this.

A distance shout by the lake makes them both nearly tumble into the bush and land a branch in Remus' eye.

"_AAARGH_, MY CROTCH IS _BLEEDING!_"

"Too late," Sirius guffaws.

Remus sighs in turn. "We're going to go to hell for this."


	2. Lost Dog

**A/N:** Many thanks to Anna my beta!

**2. Lost Dog**

_(Fifth year)_

When Lily enters the Gryffindor common room to find an impressive crowd huddled round James Potter, she knows he is plotting something. She's seen throngs of people gathered suspiciously around James Potter all day; in the Great Hall, in the corridors, even in the library, a place she was quite sure he must have entered by mistake thinking it was a toilet. James Potter simply didn't do libraries.

If James is plotting, Lily is in danger. She thinks if James plotted hard enough he could take over the Wizarding world and make up silly rules like underwear being illegal and replace armchairs with hammocks.

...the hammock idea sounded jolly good fun, but that was beside the point.

She can't just pass the large crowd gathered in the common room, either. Not only are they blocking the exit (two rather large seventh years standing arm-by-arm in front of the portrait hole, on purpose, no doubt), but she has stubborn curiosity at the worst of times. Sighing, she makes her way over to James sitting on one of the armchairs in front of the fire, looking thoroughly miserable.

"What's going on, oh pain in my rear?" she asks with folded arms. James doesn't even look up, worrying Lily. Usually James always stole opportunities to ogle at her. "What's wrong with him, Remus?" she asks one of his acquaintances nearby.

Remus makes a rather painful sigh in turn. "He's lost something very dear to him."

"I'm afraid you can't lose _arrogance_ over night, Remus."

"No," he shakes his head, "no it's not his arrogance, or any other annoying personality trait he possess—"

James' head pops up to glare at Remus. "Oi!" he says, miffed.

"James' pet dog is missing," Peter explains.

"Potter has a pet dog?"

Remus sighs and nods.

"His name is Padfoot," James says sadly.

"Padfoot?" Lily repeates with a frown. "Isn't that what you call Black?"

James laughs nervously. "Coincidences are charming, aren't they?"

Lily narrows her eyes at him, but the sound of an elbow thumping into someone's stomach catches her attention. She studies Peter elbowing a fellow fifth year in the stomach at least five times until he snaps out of his daydream. With a firm look from James, the fifth year looks down at his hand beside his thigh, reading something off his palm.

"Pa… Pa… Padfeet?" The boy attempts to read as he squints at his hand, trying to crack the code of the smudged ink. "Padfeet is a great…doog?"

"Dog," Peter corrects him out of the corner of his mouth. "And it's Pad_foot_."

"Sure," the boy nods, reading on, "Padfoot is la... loo... loved? "Yes, I think it says loved. Padfoot is loved by everybody. He didn't have fleas. And he was a hit with the lady… doogs."

"Dogs," Peter corrects him again.

"Sure," the boy stuffs his hands in his pocket and looks up at James, "Can I have my galleon now—?"

"ANYWAY," James cuts across him when Lily is about to interrogate him on what their classmate is being paid for, and why he just read an illegible essay off his hand. "My dog. He's missing."

"Again, since when did you even own a dog?" Lily asks him shrewdly.

"I have photographic evidence!" James informs her with an overenthusiastic grin. He brings out a photo album, obviously prepared, and shows it to Lily.

"This is me and Padfoot in the park," James says, pointing to the magical moving photograph. Lily finds it very strange for a dog to attempt travelling down a slide and James pushing a _dog_ on a swing. He flicks to another photograph.

"This is me and Padfoot on holiday in Cornwall," he says, pointing to a photo of a beach. Again, Lily finds it very strange for a dog to be wearing _swim wear_, with _sunglasses_, posing on a _surfboard_.

"There's Padfoot running away from a horny Labrador," he laughs, showing her another photograph. Lily looks away before she witnesses humping of any kind. When James turns to another page of the photo album, her eyes nearly pop out of her head in shock.

"What is _that_?" she demands, pointing to what appears to be Padfoot again in a forest of some kind, accompanied by what looks to be a werewolf.

"HALLOWEEN COSTUME," James lies before shutting the album with a slam. He ignores the way Lily's eyes narrow at him, begging, "I need your help..."

Lily knows what James is going to ask her.

"Forget it!"

"Oh come on Lily, please?"

"I am not helping you find your stupid dog!"

She spins on her heel and heads towards the portrait hole a second time. But te burly seventh years guarding the exit are still there, scary as ever, forbidding her from escaping. "Is this some kind of conspiracy?" Lily says.

James attempts yet again, with the sort of saddened look you would see on a homeless child, "Lily, please? Pretty please with a mango on top?"

"A what on top?"

"I don't like cherries," James says, as if that will explain the peculiar phrase. "Pretty, beautiful, dazzling please?"

Lily sticks her nose up in the air and replies, "And what if I don't?"

"I'll lick my finger and then stick it in your ear—yes, James Potter saliva may possibly travel down your auditory canal."

Lily gasps, "You wouldn't dare—get away!" She climbs across one of the armchairs in the room when James licks his finger and comes towards her. "Get that finger away from me, Potter!" She screams and grabs hold of his wrist seconds before his finger touches her earlobe. "Alright, ALRIGHT! I'll help you!" she gives in at long last.

"Works every time," James grins, wiping his finger on his shirt. Lily looks away with displeasure.

* * *

James cups his hands around his mouth and yells "PADFOOT!" at the top of his lungs for the billionth time. "WHERE ARE YOU, PADFOOT?"

Lily is _this _close to ripping out his spleen. She agreed to help search the castle for James' dog. She did _not _agree to him damaging her eardrums.

"PA—"

"Potter, can I stop you right there?" Lily cuts in politely, fists balled. "If the dog were here, it would hardly be able to shout 'oh yes, I am here!' back, would it?"

James considers his answer. "But he'd bark back," he says firmly.

"You're sure about that, are you?"

"Positive as a pickled egg."

Lily rolls her eyes, "What is the point in saying weird made up phrases like that? No one understands them but you."

"All phrases have to start somewhere, Lily. One day my phrases will be in the phrase book, and you'll be seething with jealousy."

"Oh sure, I'll be _jealous_ that 'positive as a pickled egg' is in some sort of official phrase book and I hadn't created it," Lily says, unable to conceive anything he is saying. "You know, your brain—"

"Oh yes, I do know my brain. Lovely chap. We dined in Hogsmeade just the other night—"

"Your brain," Lily continues, speaking over him, "works likes a garden shed. You stuff it with useless rubbish until it overflows, implodes, and you're left with pieces of _thick_ wood—"

"Can you hear barking?" James asks her unexpectedly.

"I'm in the middle of slandering you, don't interrupt me!"

Quickly, James grabs her hand and pulls her down the corridor in the direction of the barking.

"Oh Merlin, the finger that you previously licked is touching my now contaminated hand!" Lily tries to wrestle her hand free but persitently James drags her down the corridor. "Let go of me!"

"I can hear the barking, can't you?" James asks.

"Apparently your dog's barking is only detected by the owner because all I can hear is my contaminated hand _burning_ from your saliva—" Lily shuts up when she notices they're facing a broom cupboard.

"The barking is coming from in there," James says, gesturing to the broom cupboard, trying terribly hard to hold back from waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"_No_, it's _not_."

"Trust me, it is."

"I'd rather trust a baby holding a wand than trust you." Lily eyes him sceptically. "I want you to think _very carefully_ before you even consider dragging me in that broom cupboard."

"Okay, I'm thinking about it," James says, looking up pensively for a moment. Then he pulls her inside the dark broom cupboard as expected, banging the door shut behind them.

"Why am I not surprised you just did that, Potter? You are a buffoon, and I hope that garden shed head of yours gets set on fire by antisocial teenage arsonists."

"Can you see Padfoot?"

"Can I see—_can I see your stupid dog? _If you hadn't noticed already, it's pitch black in here!"

Suddenly James lights up his wand and shines it over his face, light illuminating his features in a creepy fashion. "Boo," he grins.

"WAAAAH!"

James looks offended by her reaction. "Merlin, surely my face isn't that scary?"

"I beg to differ, but that wasn't the reason for my scream. There is a giant spider on your face—"

"SPIDER?" screams James girlishly. "HOLY MOTHER OF MERLIN!"

He quickly scrambles for the door knob and they tumble out of the broom cupboard, James whacking his face for spiders at the same time. After two minutes of Lily watching James slap his self continuously in the face, he stops with a scowl.

"There was no spider, was there?"

"Nope."

* * *

"Evans. Evans, I think I know what happened to Padfoot—"

"I'm going to tell you before you even begin your hypothesis: it's not what happened."

"But you haven't even heard me out!"

"Go on, then."

"Padfoot could be kidnapped by Lord Voldemort—"

"You're an idiot."

* * *

"Aha!" James says, as he and Lily arrive at their newfound destination: the kitchens. Why they're at the kitchens, Lily doesn't know. Perhaps for a snack break?

"What are we doing here?" Lily asks, watching James tickle the portrait of fruit.

"Padfoot could be in there."

Lily doesn't look at all convinced.

"He likes to eat," James says. He climbs through the portrait and Lily follows him with a deflated sigh. They're met with house elves and a delicious waft of food.

"Oh, look what we have here!" James says, sounding awfully rehearsed, and Lily really doesn't want to look. "Someone has left two sets of delicious candlelit meals!" He points to the pair of three-course meals set on the table by to two lit candles, fancy napkins, and the best silver cutlery. It looks all very romantic. "How strange!" James strokes his chin.

"Indeed," Lily agrees with suspicion.

"Wait, sir," a house elf intrudes, "I thought you asked us specifically to set the food out—"

"SSSSSHH," James hushes the elf. "Well, we can't let the food go to waste; there are Muggles starving in Africa! Let's eat!"

Just as Lily is about to decline, James forces her to sit down and pushes the plate of food in front of her nose. She plans wringing his neck as he takes the seat opposite, tucking a napkin into his collar and cutting up his chicken.

"Wine, miss?" a house elf asks, gesturing to her empty goblet.

"Oh, yes please—_wait a second._ This looks like a date!"

James looks back at her with innocent eyes. "No it doesn't."

"Would you and your date like to move on to dessert, sir?"

Hot chicken is promptly thrown in James' face. By Lily. At much speed.

* * *

When James and Lily arrive at their next destination to search for Padfoot, the Prefects Bathroom, it's clear James has lost a lot of enthusiasm to find his beloved pet. Having hot chicken tossed in his face had not put him in the best of moods.

"Why are we in here? I thought dogs didn't like water."

"You never know,"James responds with a shrug.

Lily can only seeing a bath full of football-sized, lavender bubbles. No dogs.

"I don't see your dog - can we go?"

Lily looks up from a bath and finds James dressed in a bathrobe. She can see a glimpse of his chest peeking through; he's definitely naked. Lily is impressed by how quickly James got undressed…

_Mildly._

"What are you _doing_?" Lily sputters in horror. She tries hard not to blush but it's simply not viable.

"Well, I thought, while we're here and that, and I'm feeing especially unclean today, why not have a bath?"

Lily accepts his answer; he's allowed to have a bath. Lily can leave so he'll have his privacy and they can search for his pet later--

"Together!"

Lily throws him in the water.

James waits for her to jump in after.

She doesn't.

* * *

"My hair's all soggy now—"

"Oh shut up, you big girl's blouse."

* * *

After having a chicken lobbed at his face and being thrown into a bathtub head first, James is hanging by a thread. His plan is not going as intended. Maybe he was just a little too optimistic (or delusional, whatever word you prefer) in thinking Lily Evans would dine with him, and Lily Evans would even bathe in the same water as him.

"PADFOOT!"

He and Lily are in Hogwarts grounds searching for Padfoot. It's so dark they can barely see where they're going, even with their wands. It's late now. A half moon glows and stars glitter prettily down at them.

"PADFOOT!" James yells again, pointing his wand around wildly.

"Potter," Lily whines, "Potter, I want to go inside. It's late and I'm cold."

Wordlessly, James hands her his robes and continues to search, bounding over rocks and grass. "Pads!" he calls.

"Potter," Lily starts gently, grateful for his robe to wear as a second layer, but cautious on wearing it (the pockets are moving as though they're filled with living things). "This is pointless. I'll tell you what, why don't we go back in the castle, have a nice hot drink, and we'll look for your dog tomorrow?"

"No." Lily watches his shoulders slump sadly and he stares up at the sky. "No, I don't want to look tomorrow," he tells the heavens. His resolute determination in finding his pet dog intrigues her slightly.

"I don't want to leave you out here alone in case you end up falling in a ditch somewhere." She uses casual tones, an effort to sound as though she doesn't care; she doesn't want to give him the wrong impression that she cares about him or anything... "I'm going inside," she decides.

"Don't go."

Two simple words that make her change her mind.

Without warning, James stretches out his arms and starts spinning on the spot while looking up at the sky with the silliest smile on his face. Lily laughs absurdly at his behaviour.

"What are you doing?"

"Try it," James says, still spinning like a madman. "Focus on one star and spin."

_How inane_, Lily thinks, but she thinks, what else has she got to lose?

"Which star?" she asks James curiously.

He stops spinning to point at a star in particular. "That one," he says. "That one right there."

Lily shakes out her arms and legs and pulls her head back as far as it'll go to look upwards. Like the wind, she twirls, gradually experiencing light-headedness.

"Faster!" James soon challenges her.

"I feel sick!" Lily complains, but she's laughing, because this is the most fun she's had in ages.

Eventually overcome with such dizziness and disorientation they can no longer stay upright, they collapse back into the damp grass in a fit of giggles and hilarity. Lily knows she's going to get a damp bottom and people are going to ask her why she's got a damp bottom and if she tells them it was James Potter's fault it'll sound very shady indeed. Watching the stars, Lily recalls the term 'star-crossed lovers' and wonders if she has one. She sits up on her elbows and studies James bathed in moonlight.

"You love that dog, don't you?"

James smiles. A genuine, honest smile with no sly intention behind it, and Lily's stomach flutters.

"Yeah. He's like my best friend."

"This 'lost dog' doesn't exist and this has all been an elaborate scheme to make me fall in love with you, hasn't it?"

"Yes and I'm sorry," James apologizes like wildfire. "Can't blame a bloke for trying, eh?"

"No," Lily disagrees, "You _can_ blame a bloke for trying, and I'm blaming you for still trying." A chuckle leaves James' mouth. "Seriously Potter, you need to stop with these schemes. It's unhealthy."

"I'm fine," he insists, "and I'm healthy." He seizes her hand and places it on top of his forehead to feel his temperature. "Feel that? Normal."

"You're as cold as ice-cream."

"Well, I was foolish enough to give my robe away."

"Well, who's to blame for that?"

"The girl who hasn't got enough fat on her to insulate and keep her warm."

"What am I, a seal?"

"Sorry, but can you take your hand away now?"

"Sorry," Lily apologizes, pulling her hand away in embarrassment.

"Actually, put it back. My forehead is cold."

Looking tremendously confused, Lily puts her hand back on his forehead, looking cautious. Her hand is sweaty and she hopes he doesn't notice.

"Your hand is sweaty."

And his eyelashes brush the curve of her hand. She thinks he's opening and closing his eyes on purpose.

"Stop that, it tickles," she reprimands him. His forehead feels warmer now. "Potter, I think I'm enjoying your company and it scares me."

"What's so scary about that?"

"Potter, I'm not joking."

"Bloody hell," James sits up, looking genuinely alarmed. "That is scary! Next you'll be saying you're contemplating kissing me! Wouldn't that be ridiculous?"

"Perhaps it's too late?"

"Really?"

"No."

"Then why are you so close I can feel your breath?"

"Haven't got the foggiest idea."

_Perhaps it will happen after all_, James thinks, as he draws close to Lily. Perhaps he didn't need daft ideas to win the girl all along? Just a patch of grass and a starry night. James puckers his lips and prepares to kiss the girl of his dreams...

Something is growling. Something is growling and gnawing at his foot and—oh god, pointy, _pointy_ things are piercing his ankle.

James tells himself to ignore it. _Just a little closer_, he chants, his lips almost touching Lily's, until he can no longer ignore it when the pointy things tug at his trouser leg and he falls onto his back on the wet grass with a thud. He waves goodbye to Lily's lips and turns on the culrpit of whatever pulled him back to earth with a glare:

Sirius in Animagus form. Slobbering all over his shoes.

"I thought you didn't have a dog," Lily says.

"Neither did I," James grumbles, forming a plan to kill Sirius later for interrupting them. "Anyway, where were we?" Hoping to finish off where they left off, he sweeps down for a second chance to kiss her. Just as James is close enough to smell the strawberry balm coating Lily's lips, Padfoot digs his teeth into James' foot again, and James cries out in anger. He appears to be making a game of it as he wiggles James' foot in his mouth like it's a chew toy . Lily, someone partial to animals, finds it cute.

"Get off, you mongrel!"

She isn't partial to that.

"Lighten up, Potter," Lily's says sourly. "He's just having fun."

"It's not fun when you aren't able to feel your foot!" James jumps to his feet and moves his foot to fro violently and frantically, much to Lily's horror. However, Padfoot seems to have acquired a firm grip. "Padfoot, you twat!"

"Potter, don't do that!" Lily watches the dog practically floating in the air by James' trouser leg. "And don't shout at him either! You'll scare him!"

"He's used to it."

Lily gasps at him.

"Padfoot. Padfoot, _let go!_ Do you want me to _boot_ you in the face _again_?"

Lily gasps again.

"Potter, you make me sick!"

James stops trying to free his foot from Padfoot's mouth and responds with a bewildered, "What?"

"How can you treat your dog like that? It's cruel!"

Gently, Lily pries Padfoot's mouth off James' trouser leg, picks him up and settles him in her arms like a newborn baby. She strokes Padfoot's fur and scratches that spot behind his ears for him.

"I'm keeping this dog firmly away from you, Potter," Lily spits at James, holding Padfoot close to her chest. "And Black, too."

She throws him a dirty look before storming back to the castle. Padfoot is peeking over her shoulder. Dogs can't smirk, but this one can.

James decides neutering will be a suitable enough punishment for Sirius.


	3. Thestrals

**A/N:** Thanks to my beta Anna!

**3. Thestrals**

_(Seventh Year)_

A dragonish face of nightmares; long, black manes; great leathery wings, and visible bones belonging to a skeletal body that should be hidden away by flesh.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. The eyes of those creatures were empty and white. _These_ souls were dead.

Lily stood before them in her final year of Hogwarts, frozen under their haunting stare. In theory, if she stood perfectly still and quiet, perhaps the mysterious creatures wouldn't attack her with their powerful wings and dangerous looking hooves. Just when she thought the magical world couldn't get any stranger, she came back to Hogwarts and found unnerving creatures she'd never seen before, pulling carriages to the castle.

Perhaps she was just wary of them because they reminded her of horses, animals she'd never been particularly keen of. They didn't look particularly friendly, and she was afraid her classmates might be in danger.

"Lily! Lily, are you coming in the carriage or what?"

Her friends from inside one of the carriages had been calling her name for several minutes, beckoning for to her to hurry up and get in. They'd saved her a seat. She wanted to join them but moving seemed impossible, as if the beasts had cast done a non-verbal Petrification spell on her.

"What _are _those?" Lily asked with a gulp.

Her friends looked back at her blankly. "What are what?" one of them replied.

"What are _those_?" Lily pointed at one of the frightening creatures.

One of her friends stuck their head out of the carriage window, looked back and forth, searching for what Lily was pointing her finger at, and then eyed at her confusedly.

"What are you on about, Lily?"

"She's only been Head Girl for a few minutes and she's already gone mental!"

Her friends laughed in chorus. They fell silent when Lily didn't join in. Lily studied her friends; nobody else seemed to be bothered by the creatures, or even knew they existed. Perhaps she was hallucinating?

"Lily, are you okay?" one of them asked. "Do you feel ill? Come in the carriage so we can get you back to the castle and you can lie down—"

"No," she snapped. She softened at her friend's look of hurt. "No," she repeated, calmer. "I'm not going in the carriage until somebody tells me what that creature pulling it is—"

"I can tell you," a soft whisper tickled her ear. Lily jumped in surprise, grabbed for her wand in her pocket and stuck it at the throat of the person behind her. She withdrew her wand –_slowly_, mind you— upon discovery of who it was: James Potter rubbing his recently bruised throat.

"I don't want any of your nonsense this year, Potter," Lily warned him. She was practising one of her well-formed glares in his direction for him to take the hint and leave, when James said something that stunned her, so confidently asserting yet so quiet only he and Lily could hear.

"I can tell you about the beasts pulling those carriages."

He wore a look that she'd never seen before, a look that was sad. So she hadn't been hallucinating after all. James knew what she was on about. She wasn't going insane.

However, she would have chosen anyone but him to explain the beasts to her. _Anyone_ but him to divulge knowledge of something she didn't know and wanted desperately to find out about.

"Want me to walk you to the castle?" he asked, offering his arm to link with. Lily looked at his arm dubiously; it had been a bold move of his.

"You want to know about the beasts, right?" And there was the Marauder Grin she knew too well. The grin said it all: _take my arm or I won't tell you anything_.

"Fine," Lily replied brusquely, accepting his arm.

"Er, Lily, what are you doing?" one of her friends asked, oggling at the spectacle that was James Potter and Lily Evans in arm and arm.

"It appears Potter has offered to walk me to the castle." Lily looked at James briefly; he gave a little smirk. "I've accepted. Change of scenery and all. I'll see you guys later."

Her friends seemed disturbed by the sight of the two of them together, but they didn't intrude, waving her goodbye. Lily's eyes followed the creatures with every step they took towards Hogwarts.

"Shall we?" James asked politely, gesturing for them to move forward.

"Cut to the chase, Potter." Lily started to walk at such a fast speed James struggled to keep in time, the redhead practically cutting the blood circulation in his arm. "What were those creatures back there?"

"Walk slower. And they're called Thestrals."

Lily stopped momentarily, repeating the creature's name in her mind. It sounded familiar but she knew nothing about them.

"Can you see them too?" she asked James.

James paused before answering with a quiet, measured, "No."

Lily noticed James had hesitated before he answered. She wondered if he was lying. She hoped he was lying. She'd been disappointed by his response. She wanted him to see them like she did, so they could share something.

James continued, and Lily listened closely, "When I was in fifth year, I was boarding one of the carriages and saw this kid getting upset. He said he could see things, things pulling the carriages. I laughed about it with Sirius - told him the kid was mental. But the kid seemed so convinced that they were real. When I got back to the castle, I tried looking them up, beasts only specific people could see, but otherwise invisible to others. Found out they were called Thestrals.

"They're said to be omens of evil. Very clever - brilliant set of fangs, keen sense of smell. They're drawn by the scent of blood." He stopped; Lily looked as though she was going to be sick. "Wouldn't want to bump into one of those in a dark alley, eh?"

"I agree with you there. Despite their fearsome impression, they are rather beautiful," Lily mused thoughtfully, watching the last Thestral pull a carriage in the distance. All of a sudden she remembered something odd.

"Why can I see them and others can't?"

James turned white. He avoided her eyes and ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Luck, I suppose," he responded feebly. "Well, we better hurry back." He started walking again but Lily stood her ground, unsatisfied with his answer.

"You're lying."

"What?"

"_You're lying_." Lily forbid him from moving by locking onto his arm. "Come on Potter, no need to lie to protect me. I can take it. Go on," she urged him. "Spit it out."

James took a deep breath and was gentle when he broke the news to Lily.

"You've witnessed and accepted a… death."

Lily sucked in a gasp at his words. Horrified, she untagled her arm from James and took a step backwards to distance herself from him.

"_No-one's_ supposed to know about that," she murmured on the verge of tears.

"Lily," James started.

"I didn't even know them," she suddenly blurted out, looking awfully guilt-ridden. "I didn't even know who they were…"

"What happened?" James asked, closing the distance between them again.

"You know that Death Eater attack on Diagon Alley the other day?" Lily said in a shaky voice.

"Yes," James replied, not liking where this was headed.

"Well, I was there," Lily revealed. "I'd gone with my parents - Muggles, they are - to get my school books and equipment this year. Then… well, you know, that Dark Mark had come up. It was utter chaos, everyone was panicking and I'd got separated from my parents. I ended up lost in Knockturn Alley of all places.

"I heard voices following me so I turned down another alley and hid in the shadows. The voices came from a Death Eater chasing this wizard. I looked round the corner of the alley and saw them: the Death Eater had the wizard at his knees, _sobbing_. The Death Eater said…"

She stopped, her face of sorrow switching to one of fury at the memory.

"He said 'don't die on your knees like a coward now, stand so I can kill you and hear your body hit the ground'," she spat, shaking her head in resentment. "I watched the wizard try to stand, but he couldn't - he was shaking too much.

"I refused to keep quiet and watch the innocent man die. He reminded me of my father, for Merlin's sake. I shouted at the Death Eater to stop and came out of the alley, but it was too late. Saw green and heard his body hit the ground just like the Death Eater had said. He was going to kill me next since I exposed myself, but a Death Eater _pal _of his called from further up the alley and said they had to leave. It was a shame - I wouldn't have minded a duel with him."

James hated to say it...

"But you would have died."

He almost expected a slap from Lily, but she didn't look offended in the slightest.

"Probably," she agreed, astounding James. "Died standing, though."

James couldn't help but give Lily a proud smile at that.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, Lily." James squeezed her arm.

"I'm sorry, too."

When James leant forward Lily thought he was actually going to dare to kiss her, but he'd only come closer to whisper something in her ear. He had the habit of doing that - whispering things in her ears that didn't need to be.

"Want to know a secret?"

"Hmm?" _His face is too close, _Lily thought.

"I can see the Thestrals, too."

She'd figured that, really.

"When I wish we had something in common so you'd get to know me better, I was hoping it would be an interest like Quidditch or stamp collecting," James kidded.

Lily managed a small smile.

"Shall we?" James offered his arm for her to take once again, waving his hand in the direction of the castle. Lily took it without any hesitation, finding herself clinging onto his arm more than anything. She had an ache to get to know James Potter more this year, and find out whom he had witnessed die so he could cling onto her arm in turn. Lily could tell James had changed. Perhaps death had changed him.

Perhaps death had changed her.


	4. The Sock Monster

**A/N: **Boo! It's Halloween! A holiday! And you know what I love about holidays? It's an excuse write some festive fanfiction! Thanks to my beta Anna!

**4. The sock monster**

_(Seventh Year)_

Not only was Halloween an enjoyable occasion in general, but this holiday gave the Marauders the perfect excuse to be _even more_ wicked than usual - after all, Halloween truly isn't Halloween without a bit of trick or treating (much emphasis on the tricking, and pranking just so happened to fit perfectly in that category!).

Nonetheless, Professor McGonagall was not amused about having to deal with the rowdier than usual group of boys because it was "_in the name of all that is spooky and festive, Professor_!"

The time had come for the traditional Gryffindor fancy dress party held every year in the common room. For six years now the Marauders had attended, but this year would be different: their last Halloween party at Hogwarts, and James was intending to go out with a bang. If all went well, and things rarely did when it came to his plans, he'd sport the best costume at the party and bag the girl in the process: Lily Evans, as sadly she hadn't succumbed to his "irresistible ways" _quite_ yet. It was only a matter of time, James knew, but he wanted to quicken the process of Lily falling in love with him (as if the failing years had only been a short while), and apparently this year's costume would do exactly that.

Oh yes, tonight would be the night…

* * *

Examining himself in the mirror, Sirius opened his mouth as wide as possible, as though eating an entire orange at once. Using a handy spell he'd managed to grow a pair of fangs to complete his outfit: a rather dashing vampire.

"Look at this," Sirius told James in their dorm. He grabbed a piece of parchment, put one edge inside his mouth, and dug his fangs into it. His new temporarily sharp teeth pierced two holes in the parchment and two small round pieces drifted to the floor. "My mouth is like a hole puncher!"

"Why don't you try that to your back end?"

"Oh _har har_, Prongs." Sirius stuck out his tongue at him. He drew his attention to smoothing down his cape. "Why aren't you changed yet?" he asked, noticing James was still dressed in his school robes.

"It's a surprise," he answered mysteriously. Sirius' insides filled with dread.

"You're not dressing as my mother, are you?"

"Merlin no," James scoffed in return. "You could have gone as her, all you have to do is put on a dress—_watch it_!" He ducked an incoming pillow hurled by Sirius indignantly.

"Do you want your eyes, Prongs? Because I'm pretty sure these can pierce eyes," he pointed to his sharp teeth.

James rolled his eyes. "Oh calm down, fang-face."

"What do you think?" Remus asked, coming out of the bathroom in his costume: a make-shift fur covered his arms and the majority of his face to complete his attire. "Do I look like a realistic werewolf to you?"

"Moony, you _are_ a werewolf. You can't get any more realistic than that," Sirius pointed out.

"Hmm, I'm starting to wonder if dressing as a werewolf wasn't the wisest idea if I want to throw everyone off the scent of being one," Remus mused.

Sirius studied him for a moment. "Say you're dressed as an extremely hairy uncle," he offered. "My uncle Alphard's a bit hairy. Say you're my uncle."

"I'd rather not be your uncle, Sirius."

Sirius shrugged. "Your loss." He fished out a pair of devil horns from under his bed and placed them on Remus' head. "Does this make you slightly happier?"

"Devil horns are not the answer to everything, Sirius!" Remus threw up his hands. Sirius shrugged again and flapped his cape, making Remus think he'd passed wind and was trying to move the smell in another direction.

"Shall we depart?" Sirius asked, still flapping his cape.

"Yes, let's," Remus agreed, heading for the door. "Are you coming, Prongs?"

"I'll see you down there. I have to change into my costume," James grinned from ear to ear.

"Little help, guys!"

Sirius and Remus threw their attention to a corner of their dorm: Peter had fallen over in his pumpkin costume and was unable to get up.

"Could you roll me out, please?"

Stifling giggles, Sirius and Remus rolled Peter across the floor and out of the door. Once the boys left the room, James pulled out his Halloween outfit from under his bed.

'_I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid' - _those were Lily's words forever cemented in James' brain ever since fifth year.

On any other ordinary night he was James Potter, but tonight he would be that very giant squid she would choose over him…

* * *

James tried his hardest not to slip down the staircase to the Gryffindor common room, a journey which seemed considerably longer, whether it was because he was now dressed as a giant squid and it was difficult to walk in the costume, or this was a significant moment in history, time slowing down with every measured step towards the girl of his dreams.

He was really quite smug with his costume – it had taken him a little over three days to craft it, and the tentacles were the hardest part: knee-length socks that were stitched to his upper body that occasionally swayed in the air with magic like funny looking snakes.

When he finally entered the common room, nobody seemed to recognize him. Other costumes caught his eye: ghosts, black cats, a bloke dressed as… Professor McGonagall? James would avoid that one…

Lively wizard music drifted into his ears and tempted him to dance, but there was no time for that! He had a girl to bag! After chugging down a goblet of Butterbeer to keep his spirits high, he made his way across the room, trying to blend in, something quite difficult being a giant squid.

When people began to gasp at the sight of him as he passed, he grinned harder (he knew he'd clearly found the best costume in the land). When he spotted Sirius and Remus bickering in a corner (Sirius was already rather tipsy and kept stroking Remus' hairy arms) he rushed over to them. At the sight of James, Sirius spat out the remains of the Butterbeer in his mouth and collapsed into giggles.

"You did dress as my mother, Prongs," he snorted.

James ignored him. "Have you seen Lily?"

Remus looked rather puzzled. It was James' tentacles that he found most bizarre - they kept prodding him in the cheek now and then. "Erm," he fiddled with the devil horns that had gone slightly askew on his head, "I think she's dancing over there." He pointed to a certain direction, and James clapped him on the back in gratitude before rushing off again.

"'Scuse me," he said politely, pushing through the crowd. He spotted Lily's red hair in the distance and speeded up. He wasn't sure if it was the beat of the music or his heart but he could hear something thump faster and faster. "Sorry, can I get past?" More gasps and - were those giggles? James didn't understand those.

When he finally caught up to Lily she was swinging her hips and dancing with enthusiasm to the music, swinging her hips in time and obviously having a great time. He watched her back, mesmerised by her. She was dressed as a pirate, an image that seemed to suit her perfectly - and the best pirate he'd ever seen, too. Black, leather buckled boots, a cute bandana and eye patch, a baldric for what he hoped was her _fake_ sword, and even a cuddly toy parrot was perched on her right shoulder. He loved the fact that she hadn't chosen a costume that was predictable, like a Dementor or banshee; she hadn't chosen the typical, because she was far, _far_ from that. She was rare, James thought, rare like one of those shiny white pearls you got at the bottom of the sea, the ones that were enclosed in hard shells, hard shells you could eventually get past in the end. It was just a matter of time.

He finally worked up the courage to tap her shoulder. She was in between laughing with someone until she glanced behind her shoulder. She did a double-take and whirled round properly to face James. The expression on her face was not one that he had expected, one of impress or yearn or even happiness. A frown was fixed upon her face, and that made James frown equally in turn. Her eyes held sadness after taking in what he was wearing.

"Potter," she started gently.

It was then James noticed a bloke behind Lily's shoulder, and seeing him only seemed to worsen the humiliation he felt. The sight of him made James' stomach churn: he was wearing something far different to James' outfit, a different species; in fact, he was dressed as a knight in shining armour.

_Lily's knight in shining armour,_ he concluded. And he'd come to the Halloween party as an ugly giant thing that belonged in the murky lake.

And then the laughter came, like arrows through the chest. Lily wasn't laughing, but her silence meant everything. He would have preferred it if she laughed. James didn't realize until now a circle of people had surrounded them, laughing at him as if he were an out of place Slytherin that didn't belong there. All of a sudden he felt very alone. He shoved himself past the partygoers and climbed through the portrait hole to escape the cruel laughs that rung shrilly through his ears.

He ran and ran, trying to get as far away from the Gryffindor Tower as possible, until he was out of breath. In an empty corridor, he replayed what happened back at the party in his head.

He'd royally cocked this one up, hadn't he?

He eyed one of his sock tentacles and let out a large groan.

"Trick or treat?" a silky voice asked him. A pair of hands had suddenly appeared from behind him and covered his eyes – delicate, slightly clammy hands, James noticed, ones he instinctively knew belonged to Lily Evans.

"Trick," he answered stubbornly. Nothing would stop him from sulking.

"Let me rephrase that," her hands readjusted slightly, "treat or… _treat_." A small chuckle escaped her lips.

Softly, James held Lily's wrists and removed her hands from his eyes, then spun round. "Is this a prank?" he asked her plainly.

"Why do you think I'm out to get you, Potter?" she said between laughs.

"Because you obviously are?"

Lily rolled her eyes and handed him a small piece of parchment. James looked at her strangely for a moment, then read the note.

_I, Lily Evans, owe you, James Potter, one Halloween dance._

His mood ever so slightly lifted. "Halloween dance," he repeated. "Never heard of one of those. Do you dance with pumpkins in your hands, or does it involve my lap—?"

"Do you want that treat back, Potter?" She reached out to take that note from his hand but he'd trapped it in his fist and held it close to his chest.

"Mine!" he growled.

They both laughed for a moment, his silly, possessive behaviour amusing, until James realized where they were and why they were there and what had happened and oh Merlin, he was dressed as a GIANT SQUID.

"Oh Merlin, _no_." He covered the blush across his cheeks. "I'm such a _fucking idiot_."

"No you're not."

James looked at Lily in disbelief. "I'M DRESSED AS A SQUID."

Comprehension dawned on Lily. "Oh! Oh, _that's_ what you are!"

"You didn't even _know_ what I was!" James gawked at her. "I'm an idiot _beyond words!_"

"It was the socks," Lily cringed, gesturing to his tentacles. "I just thought you were some kind of sock monster…"

"Oh Merlin. Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, Oh Merlin." He wandered over to a wall, intending to bang his head repeatedly against one of the portraits, but Lily stopped him by touching his arm.

"Potter, out of curiosity, why are you dressed as a giant squid?"

James sighed, mumbling quietly, "No reason."

"_Potter_." She got out her, again, hopefully _fake _sword from her baldric. "Don't make me use this, matey," she prodded his stomach with her weapon.

"Have mercy!" he played along. Lily pretended to glower at him. "Alright, alright, " he gave in. "It was something you said in fifth year. You said, 'I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid'_._" He stared down at his feet despondently. Lily had to cover her mouth to hold back a laugh.

"Oh Potter," she sighed. "You really are something else, aren't you?"

James' stomach twisted painfully. "You really do hate me," he started.

"No," Lily argued at once. "No, I really don't. And being something else doesn't automatically mean something bad, you know."

Kindly and consolingly, she told him, "You don't have to be a giant squid to get me to like you. Absurdly enough, you just have to be _you, _not the bloke that shows off for his friends or hexes people for attention or because he can, that _you_ I see past that bloody front of yours." She prodded him in the stomach again with her plastic sword. "The one who makes me swoon just a little."

James could very much say a certain red-haired pirate was making him swoon at that precise moment. She took his hand and squeezed it.

"You need to stop these ridiculous acts because you think they'll get me to like you, when I might _already_ do."

"Really?" James said.

"_Really_," Lily confirmed truthfully.

"But… what about that bloke back there dressed in the shining armour?"

"I don't think he's even in Gryffindor, you know," Lily said with suspicion. "He shouldn't even have been allowed in; I swear he's a Ravenclaw. Besides, a knight in shining armour?" She snorted. "How boring and cheesy is that?"

Those were the exact words James wanted to hear.

"Now get out of that bizarre costume, come back to the party and dance with me," she tugged his hand.

"Alright," he gave in as he let her pull him along. _Just like that, _he thought, embarrassingly enough. "One thing, though."

She stopped. "What's that?"

"I'm not wearing anything underneath this," he gestured to his absurd outfit.

"_Well_," she stressed the word deliberately with a smirk, "You're going to be a bit fresh in our Halloween dance, aren't you?" She tossed him her sword and it hit him in the stomach. "That'll cover your manly bits, _matey_."

She threw him an inviting look over her shoulder before she turned back around and made her way back to Gryffindor Tower. He knew she expected him to follow. James could hear her singing under her breath, _'We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs. Drink up me hearties, yo ho..._'

James scoffed after Lily; he wasn't _that_ desperate for a dance...

He stared at the sword on the floor.

"Oh shiver me _bloody_ timbers," he muttered. Hurrying, he picked up the sword and ran down the corridor after her, yanking off his sock tentacles on the way.


	5. Our Son

**5. Our Son**

"You are not dressing Harry as a _Puffskein_, Lily."

There's a certain dilemma in the Potter household. Halloween has come round, a perfect opportunity for James and Lily to abuse the holiday by dressing up Harry in a ridiculous costume. Except they can't decide on one. They seem to have forgotten that Harry is only one years old - he could be dressed up as Niffler dung and he wouldn't care or even acknowledge he was wearing something out of the ordinary, or something so vile.

"What's wrong with Puffskeins?" Lily asks her husband.

James can't help but scowl at the name of the creature. He disagrees with anything that contains the word _puff_ in it.

"They're so soft and…spherical." James doesn't normally mind spherical things, but not _alive_ spherical things with fur and googly eyes and long tongues that apparently lap up wizards' bogeys when you sleep. "It's like holding a very unusually hairy Snitch," he says with a shudder.

"Well, what do you want him dressed as, then?" Lily turns the question on him, crossing her arms irritably.

A smirk slowly creeps upon his lips. Lily almost knows what he's about to say next, because what is James Potter beside a mop of untidy hair, glasses and infuriating wizard excellence?

"A stag." He grins. Witnessing Harry fully clad as his Animagus form would be like seeing a smaller version of his handsome self. He thinks Harry would look particularly good with antlers.

"Oh I hope that suggestion was a joke." The look of self-impress disappears from James' face and is replaced with one of hurt. "How in any way is a stag scary, James?"

"How in any way is a Puffskein scary, Lily?" James is at the end of his tether. He loves her, really he does, but she's completely batty. "I've seen Sirius in Animagus form cough up better looking hairballs!"

"I might just buy you a Puffskein for Christmas as a punishment for saying that," she warns him dangerously, and James wonders why she both loves and defends the pets so much. From the amount of genuine upset in her voice it's as though she has a Puffskein for a relative. Maybe Lily's sister is an actual Puffskein? But he met her sister before; she looked more like a horse at the time.

"Please, Lily," James starts desperately, "I just don't want Harry looking like some furry ball form of custard. I refuse to let _our son_-"

Suddenly he falls so silent colour drains from Lily's face in shock - she's never experienced a quiet Potter in her life, even in their days back in Hogwarts. He's always babbling on about something. But although James is alarmingly mute, the expression across his face relieves her: he's smiling, a father's smile, a smile that can't be faked no matter how good an actor you are. It's like he's discovered something quite beautiful.

_Our son,_ the words ricochet pleasantly within James' mind. _Our son…_

If he doesn't explain himself in the next five seconds Lily may very well whip out her wand and turn him into a Puffskein in a pink puff of smoke. "What? What is it?"

"It just has such a nice ring to it, doesn't? It just sounds so... _bloody brilliant._ Our son, Lily."

They gaze fondly at Harry asleep on the kitchen table, squeezing the life out of his favourite cuddly toy, a shaggy black dog, given by his Godfather (it's like a security blanket, Lily can't pry his fingers from the filthy thing). Harry had been watching his parents bickering, his head turning back and forth as though watching an exciting game of tennis. But at some point he'd decided a nap was a better option, nodding off and drooling on the tablecloth (recently washed, a Scottish tartan pattern that would make McGonagall weak at the knees).

"Our son," James says again, because he could never tire saying it. He wants to touch the little person in front of him, pat his head or tickle his belly, but he resists the urge and lets him sleep undisturbed. "Sometimes," he says, crouching down and taking in every detail of Harry with proud eyes, "I can't believe we made this little tike."

Lily bends down too. "Well, what did you expect to pop out of me? A beach ball?"

"Considering how round your stomach was at the time I wouldn't have been shocked."

Lily hits James in the stomach for that. "I suppose it was quite spherical, though," she adds thoughtfully.

"That word has been said too many times tonight to be considered normal."

Lily agrees with James, then wipes up Harry's dribble with a tissue.

"You can dress Harry as a Puffskein," James says eventually.

"But... you don't want Harry dressed as a Puffskein."

"Yes, but I want whatever you want."

Lily beams. "I love you."

"You _love_ getting your own way," James retorts.

"That, too."

He plats a kiss on her forehead and wraps an arm around her snugly, but the moment is interrupted by a booming knock at the door, so loud it reverberates inside their skulls. Harry wakes up with a start and begins to cry, his toy dog falling off the table and onto the kitchen tiles. James and Lily rise from their knees and fix their eyes down the corridor; it's never seemed so dark and painfully long to the front door until now.

They don't know anybody who knocks at Godric's Hollow. Apparition to the cottage is only allowed to a select few: members of the Order, Sirius, Remus and Peter. And if not Apparition there was always the Floo Network. This is why there are unsettling pangs in their stomachs from just a mere knock at the door.

Lily picks up Harry and looks at James for instructions, too terrified to think for herself.

"Take Harry and run."

"What? James, no!" cries Lily, distraught. "What are you going to do?"

"Do what I say, Lily."

James strides down the gloomy hallway, Lily following close behind with Harry in her arms, wriggling and crying hard tears that sting against his cheeks. James squeezes his wand tightly in his palm, knuckles white with anger. Inches from swinging the door open, Lily throws her weight against it, blocking James from siezing the door handle. She bursts into tears in front of him. James looks at her pleadingly and holds her face in his hands.

"Please Lily, go upstairs." He kisses her one final time, fiercely and desperately. "Do it for me."

Lily swallows back a sob at the back of her throat. She doesn't want to leave, but then she looks at Harry and knows she has no other choice. Eventually she lets go of James and rushes up the staircase, but she stops at the last step. She can just see James at the front door if she squats down low enough. Trying her hardest to quieten Harry down, she watches down the flight of the stairs, holding her breath as James pulls open the door-

"Trick or treat!"

He doesn't think he's ever been this happy seeing a group of overexcited children in his entire life. They look up at him with eager smiles, either giddy on chocolate and sweets or even giddier by the fact that they'll be getting more in the next few seconds from this house. James spots a poor and frankly boring effort of a ghost (Hogwarts' ghosts look nothing like white sheets with eyeholes), a vampire, even a werewolf that makes him smile and think of Remus.

"Are you a wizard?" an Egyptian mummy asks him, staring openmouthed at the wand in James' hand.

"Er. Yes." He laughs. "Give us a second, kids. I'll get you your sweets."

He shuts the door a fraction so he can conjure up some chocolate with his wand from behind the door. He catches Lily's eye up at the staircase and his mouth curls upwards – trick-or-treaters can't harm them. Though everything seems well now, Harry still cries as deafening as before.

"Here you go." James hands sweets to little outstretched hands.

"Thanks, Mr. Wizard!" The children giggle and leave scurrying down the path in haste, keen for more sweets from the next house.

Once the front door is shut again, he leans back against it and sighs in relief. A bubble of laughter leaves his mouth. He wants to run up the staircase and plant kisses all over his wife and son for all eternity. He takes a step forward –

Another knock.

"Greedy buggers!" James had given the children plenty enough chocolate, wasn't it enough for them? He spins round and pulls open the door. "Come on kids, don't make me use my wand-"

Words escape him. A dark figure is standing at the door, pure wickedness taking human form.

Lily screams.


	6. The biscuit tin

**6. The biscuit tin**

"I've changed," he claims, but he could have said _I'm dying for a coffee_ or _the weather's really shite today_ in its place and the words would have held more truth.

She's trying to finish her Charms essay but she can't concentrate. He's sitting far too close and watching her every move like a hawk, except this hawk wears glasses and messes up his hair whenever it begins to look just the teensiest bit orderly. All she's capable of thinking of is why she hasn't left the room yet, and why she doesn't desire to.

"Evans..."

He tucks strands of loose hair carefully behind her ears so he can see the curves of her cheeks while she stares ahead and sputters out words that never come. They're not even dating (_yet,_ James thinks. _Wise choice,_ thinks Lily), but he does things to her that couples would do when they're alone - which happens to be a lot, she being Head Girl and he Head boy - like stroke her arms and rub his thumb over her knuckles.

Lily clears her throat, and James looks wounded for a moment.

"I've changed-"

"So you say, James. So you say."

A deep sigh leaves James' mouth. He gives up looking hurt and rests his head on Lily's shoulder. There's no point telling him to get off because he won't, much like a loving cat settled warmly in your lap.

"I swear I have," he goes on persistently. "Just ask Remus, or anybody. Do these look like the eyes of a liar to you?" He points at his eyes.

"You need to open your eyes for me to consider an answer, you know," Lily is quick to mention, because contrary to popular belief she cannot see through the skin of eyelids.

"Sorry." He opens his eyes wide enough and she's met with deep hazel irises that render her motionless and speechless. Perhaps he should have kept them shut…

"I think you should close them again," Lily suggests, flustered. Noticing this and his affect on her, he draws closer with a grin so they're practically eyeball-to-eyeball. That's definitely too near as she begins to heat in the face, shoving him away.

"Augh! James! Bugger off! I'm never going to get this essay done," she complains over his sniggering. "What do you want?"

In just a second his expression turns serious, and she wonders if she said something wrong, at the same time wondering why she cares if she did. "A yes," he tells her quietly. "That's all I want from you. One small, little insignificant yes."

"No matter how much you say it's unimportant it's still significant, James," Lily replies restlessly, but she's suddenly looking at his eyes again and she's never seen so much truth behind them, so much striking honesty.

To hell with it.

"Yes," she says before she realizes what she's let herself in for. "Yes, alright, I'll go out with you, you insufferable git."

James beams and looks as though Christmas has come early; he's waited so long for this moment. "Thank you," he tells her happily, but when he swoops down to kiss her she stops him by placing her finger over his lips.

"If you get into any form of trouble," she warns him, "I won't ever go near you again. Do you understand me?"

"Trouble?" He laughs and pretends to look confused, as though he's never come across the word in his lifetime. "What's that?"

"James, I'm serious." Lily looks at him pleadingly. James takes her hand and squeezes it.

"I promise," he says, as though he's taking a wedding vow. "Starting tomorrow trouble will seem like a very alien thing to me."

She raises an eyebrow. "Why not starting now?"

"Because," James smiles wickedly, "I have a very bad feeling I'm going to get in a lot of trouble for what I'm about to do next," he says, and seals the end of their conversation with a kiss.

* * *

Reclining on an armchair in the common room, James lets the Golden Snitch fly a foot away from him before seizing it, but he strangely misses. He has to dive forward and nearly falls off the chair so the Snitch is secured in his hand once again.

"Shit," he mutters, because things like that aren't supposed to happen. Naturally Sirius is laughing at him from the chair opposite.

"You're not fifteen anymore, Prongs," Sirius says, cleaning dirt under his fingernails. "Your reflexes are going down hill. It's what people like to call old age."

"Oh shut up." James would throw the Snitch at Sirius' head, but he doesn't want to lose it again. He wants to let the Snitch go once more to see whether Sirius is right, whether his responses are becoming poor with age, but Sirius sends him a look which says, _put that bloody Snitch away, Wormtail isn't here_, and he stuffs it back in his pocket. He protests he wasn't doing what Sirius tells him to, he just doesn't want to play with it anymore.

"So you're dating Evans now?"

"Yep." James eyes Sirius. "Jealous?"

"Oh piss off. I'm just glad she's taken you off my hands. Nearly _seven years_ I've had to put up with that smell of yours and your head up your own arse."

"You can talk," James says darkly, but he's grinning. Now he has no Snitch to occupy his attention, his mind drifts to Lily. It's only been a week since they've started going out but he's already become infatuated with her, spending every possible waking minute of his day with her. He'd be in her company now if she hadn't insisted she needed some studying time alone in the library.

_Obviously there is something Madam Pince has got that I haven't,_ James thinks, and answers his own question, _Books…_

"Do you know where I can get some books, Padfoot?" Perhaps if he creates his own library he can see Lily more, not that he doesn't enough.

Sirius scowls. "I don't know, maybe from Remus. I think it's a bit late to take up reading now to be honest, mate."

James notices Sirius is touchy and using that irritable voice of his - Sirius is fed up and doesn't care who knows. "Are you bored?" he asks Sirius redundantly.

"Do you want to go do something?" Sirius answers James' question with his own, but it sounds more like _**I** want to do something and you better join me in the something or I'll hex you._

James doesn't want to do this "something" Sirius is referring to, because whenever he does a "something" with Padfoot it always leads to trouble, and trouble never comes in small doses with him. But Sirius has brought out the Marauder's map and his pocket knife, and now James is too curious to say no…

* * *

Reluctantly, James follows Sirius down the corridor - the plan is they're to go to McGonagall's office and break in with his pocket knife.

"Remind me why we're doing this again," James says once their outside the right office.

"McGonagall's in the Great Hall." Sirius points at the professor's position on the map. "We break in her office and steal her tartan biscuit tin."

"Her _biscuit tin?_ We're doing all this for a bloody _biscuit tin?_"

"You know she loves that tartan biscuit tin, Prongs. Imagine how much she'd flip if we stole it."

James can't help but grin at the image of the angry professor's face. He and Sirius could get deliberately caught by McGonagall hexing somebody; she would send them into her office, go on a rant about how brainless they are, delve into her desk drawer for the famous tin to offer them a biscuit, and there it wouldn't be.

"We could even take all the biscuits out and give it back to her with a …with a rabbit in it!" James conjures up excitedly.

"We're not giving it back," Sirius scoffs. "We'd be _kings_ with that biscuit tin, Prongs. Kings."

James isn't so sure. There's never room for two kings. Undeniably one will be the king and the other his servant, and he has a feeling he'd let Sirius be king because he's such a pushover for him sometimes.

A thought comes to mind. "I don't think I want to go in there," James says, peering at the door as though it's covered in disease. "For all we know McGonagall could have Dumbledore handcuffed naked to her desk."

Sirius slaps him upside the head for putting that disgusting mental image in his mind. "I'll hold the map and check if anyone's coming," he tells James. He hands his pocket knife to James. "You break in, steal the biscuit tin."

James frowns deeply. "Why do I have to do it? It was your idea."

"Who do you think will get more glory for this prank, the one checking if anyone's coming, or the one who breaks in the professor's office and steals her most precious procession?" Sirius smirks; James supposes he does have a point. "I'm doing you a favour, Prongs." He shoves James forward. "Get on with it."

An image of Lily's furious face floats into James' thoughts. If she were to catch him…

"Padfoot, I'm not so sure about this-"

"Just do it."

There's no way out. He knows Sirius won't stop being in a mood until they carry out some sort of prank today, so better it be something rather small and silly than Lily likely to catch him and Sirius trying to make Snape's head explode.

Nervously, James slides the blade of the knife into the crack between the door and the wall. It unlocks quickly with a click, almost too easily it worries him. He pokes the door and it swings open slowly with a chilling creak that belongs to a haunted house. He doesn't pass through the doorway quite yet.

"Is anyone coming?" James asks Sirius.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm bloody sure, get on with it!"

James shoots Sirius a dark look for barking orders at him but steps into the room. Luckily Dumbledore is nowhere to be found, unclothed or otherwise. He heads for McGonagall's desk and pulls open the first drawer. The tin isn't in there, just what looks like paperwork. It's not in the second or third drawer either, but he pulls open the last one at the bottom and there the biscuit tin is in all its Scottish tartan glory. He sweeps the tin into his arms, slams all the drawers shut, and breaks into a run for the door, but someone's already there.

He freezes, his heart stops, and the biscuit tin falls out of his arms and to the ground with a clang. The tin opens and a few biscuits roll out, one even humorously spinning across the floor and hitting the person at the doorway's foot – at least, it would have been humorous if it were Professor McGonagall, but it's Lily Evans.

With one shake at the head at him she turns on her heel and runs.

"Wait! Lily, wait!" He stumbles a little on strewn biscuits and clutches the doorframe in horror as he watches her escape down the corridor. He glares at Sirius eating one of McGonagall's biscuits.

"I thought you said nobody was coming!" James yells.

"I thought you meant teachers."

He shoves Sirius in the chest for being an idiot (he'd do a lot more but there isn't time), before he chases after Lily.

"Lily!" He shouts her name for the hundredth time as he follows her back. "Lily, stop!"

Eventually she comes to a halt, spins round and crosses her arms over her chest as she stares at James.

"What were you doing back there?" she questions. James looks down at his feet.

"Stealing McGonagall's biscuit tin…" He feels ashamed saying it. Lily laughs bitterly at him.

"It's been a week since we've been going out. All it took was a biscuit tin to tempt you - for you to mess this up!"

"I didn't want to do it," James shakes his head determinedly, "Sirius made me-"

Hearing James point the blame elsewhere is the last thing Lily wants to hear. "He might have encouraged you but you still did it! When are you just going to _grow up_, James? Who do you think you are, Peter-fucking-Pan?"

"We were just having a laugh!"

"But one day you'll be doing something stupid, think you're having such a laugh and be so bloody senseless that your name will be on a gravestone!" Lily yells at him. James has been on the receiving end of her shouting before, but she's never come across this upset. "I'm just trying to look out for you," she says, frantic for him to understand. "You can cause as much trouble in Hogwarts and all you'll get is detention for it. But when seventh year ends and you're out of this castle, when you _know_ there's a war going on, you can cause trouble out there and get your _life_ taken away from you as a punishment. And that would kill me, James.

"It might seem like all I ever do is yell at you," she goes on, quieter, "but it's because I care."

James can't believe this is all started from McGonagall's stupid biscuit tin, but Lily's words really hit home.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice was deep and intense with emotion. He bows his head at Lily, ashamed of himself. It doesn't matter if she doesn't accept his apology, he just needs to say it, get it out in the open. Sooner or later Lily goes over to him and strokes his slumped head (she's the only one allowed to touch his hair). In time his arms wrap around her petite frame.

"What would I do without you," he says into the curve of her neck.

"Let's not find out."

* * *

"I'm sorry."

James is back in his favourite chair in the common room. He's never seen Sirius look so embarrassed. He rarely does apologies, especially to friends. When you're a Marauder you normally just give a little nod and that's the form of a sorry.

"It's just," Sirius goes on awkwardly, and James milks this moment for all it's worth as he sits up straighter and watches his friend's discomfort with slight amusement, "it's hard to let your best friend go." Any amusement James found promptly disappears. "Especially to someone with breasts."

James stares at him for a moment, dumbfounded, until capturing him in a hug and calling him an idiot.

"So you and Evans are okay?" Sirius says.

"Yeah," James answers, relieved. "I think the whole thing with the biscuit tin did us some good. Resolved some issues." A thought strikes him. "What did you do with the biscuit tin anyway?"

"Put it back in McGonagall's drawer," Sirius sighs.

James looks dumbfounded. "Is this the start of your well-behaved streak?"

Sirius' eyes shift uneasily. "Well…"

* * *

Jadedly, Professor McGonagall stares at the stubborn young student sat in her office. She's in the company of a boy who believes hexing a Slytherin is for the greater good. Obviously he's been influenced by a certain rebellious group of boys in the castle: the Marauders.

She digs her hand in the drawer of her desk; it's time to offer the boy a biscuit to soften him up with something tastefully delicious before she really tells him off. Imagine her surprise when she opens up her favourite tartan tin and doesn't find biscuits inside…

"What in Merlin's name is a rabbit doing in here?"


	7. Arrival

**7. Arrival**

After the arrival of Harry, it's not long before James realizes something: he is not the center of attention anymore. And, frankly, this irks him just the teensiest bit. Because since Hogwarts he's been used to all eyes and ears on him - he was part of the infamous Marauders, after all. Yet now he could suddenly turn into a giant rabbit slipper and his wife wouldn't even bat an eyelid, much too consumed with their son.

There's no doubt he loves Harry, loves the way he smiles before he decides to vomit all over daddy's face (no, being sick is not uncontrollable to a baby, they _decide_ whether to vomit or not. To be sick or not sick on daddy's face? _That_ is the question, you bloody playwright). Loves the way he likes to bite daddy's nose, loves to latch his tiny little hands onto daddy's hair and try and tear it off like it like a rather disgusting wig, loves to put daddy's glasses in his (unfortunately soiled) nappies…

Perhaps he and Lily should have gotten a dog instead.

"Lily?"

The redhead is currently battling to feed little Harry while James calls her from across the kitchen table, but it seems like their son wants to climb inside one of the kitchen cupboards rather than eat as his hands squeeze the air in direction of the cabinet of pans. Lily is rather boggled by their son's fondness for cupboards, especially the one under the stairs.

"Lily?" James continues after no response from his wife. "Love? Lily? Lily love?"

"Hmm?" she finally answers, though it's evident she's using her _I'm-in-the-middle-of-something-don't-bother-me-aaaauuuuugh_ tone.

"I finished the crossword." He suddenly waves the newspaper in her face, much like a gloating child completing today's work and wanting praise from their teacher. Completed crosswords are far from what Lily wants to see - she wants to see her son eat that paste in a jar. But she humours James.

"Alright, give it here." She takes the newspaper from her beaming husband, all the while thinking, _I have two children…_

"James, you haven't done it right," Lily comments quickly.

"What do you mean I haven't done it right? Of course I've done it right." James always does it right.

"Well, I hardly think the capital of Sweden is," she looks closer at the crossword and frowns, "_ponce._"

"Sorry, I was thinking of Sirius at the time," he explains, unabashed.

Lily goes on, "And the highest mountain in the world is _breasts_, is it?" Her husband reddens. "James, you've just filled the crossword in with random words without even answering the questions correctly!" She hands him back the newspaper, rolling her eyes.

"Yes, but it's completed," James says. Lily doesn't hear what he says because she's jumping up and down in delight. Harry did something really quite amazing secondd ago: he smiled.

"James, did you see that?" squeals Lily. "He made the most handsome smile!" She picks up Harry out of his high-chair and rubs their noses together, cooing at him. "Aren't you a good wizard, hmm? Aren't you?" She kisses his forehead and hugs him against her chest. Pathetically enough, James is jealous that Harry is snuggled up against his wife's chest like that; _he_ hasn't been there for a while.

"How come when I smile I'm not rewarded?" James points out enviously.

Sensing a certain wizard in the room is feeling left out, Lily goes over to James, sits on his lap and kisses him, but Harry is still in her arms so it's awkward and not proper.

"You do know I'd prefer the gift of sex, right?"

Instantly Lily presses her hands over their son's ears in horror. "James!" She smack's her husband's torso. "Not in front of Harry!"

James scoffs, "Oh come on. He's too young to figure out what we're saying-"

"I don't care! I don't want Harry knowing about sex until he's at least… forty."

"_Forty?_" snorts James. "I don't think so. Our son will be a ladies man by Fifth year, I bet."

"Don't depress me," Lily sulks. Clearly she wants to be the only woman in Harry's life for as long as possible. She hugs Harry closer, but unexpectedly he doesn't want her warmth now, he wants his father's. "Oh dear," she says as Harry begins to fuss, "I'm think being shunned here." Harry appears to be squeezing the air in direction of James now. "Someone wants their daddy."

"Oh yes, because I'm your favourite, aren't I?" James teases Lily, taking their son in his arms. Lily snorts, obviously thinking differently. Once James settles Harry in his hands, he brings him close to his face so he can admire the way he's inherited Lily's sparkling green eyes, something that's mesmerised him for all eternity - but unexpectedly Harry vomits all over daddy's face and the moment is ruined.

"Oh dear," winces Lily.

"Lovely." James hands Harry - oddly now immensely upset and crying for no apparent reason - back to his wife. "Just lovely." He accepts a kitchen towel handed to him by Lily and wipes his face. There seems to be a thick layer of stomach contents that may very well harden in the next few seconds if he doesn't wipe it off fast enough. "I'm going to mow the lawn," he announces with a clean face, leaving the room in a huff.

"Oh come on, James," Lily calls after him, laughing. "You know he doesn't do it on purpose!"

The door leading to the back garden slams, and simultaneously Harry stops crying, looking up at his mother with big eyes, the kind you see magnified when you look at the back of a spoon.

"Isn't your daddy silly, hmm?" Lily says, rocking Harry. "You shouldn't be sick on daddy's face because he's a sensitive girl sometimes." Harry gurgles in response. "Let's go in the garden."

She follows James through the back door, Harry nestled comfortably in her arms. The air outside is fresh, but just the right amount. She looks across the garden and smiles: a stag is in the middle of the lawn, pawing occasionally at the ground as he eats grass. The stag looks up at her for a brief moment with the brownest of eyes, then returns to nibbling the lawn again.

_That's a creative way of mowing,_ Lily thinks. She's always entranced whenever she sees James' Animagus form, partly because he looks so handsome, even as something that lacks opposable thumbs, and the fact that he transforms into a creature that is just so _him_, stubbornly proud. Lily wanders over to him and strokes his coat. James quietly continues eating, and the only sound in the garden is the stag's teeth chewing grass blades and the occasional daisy. Amidst this, Harry looks terribly excited.

"You know it's daddy, don't you?" Lily says in his ear. Harry whines as his little hands try to grab the stag's antlers unsuccessfully. James sends them both a look which says, _This is not a beach and I am not up for donkey-riding_, but it's too late as Lily plonks Harry on James' back and the stag grunts. Lily has to hold onto Harry because of his general wobbliness and incapability of sitting upright.

James walks around the garden at an even pace, while Lily walks along side of him, keeping hold of Harry so he doesn't fall off. It's a very sweet moment, despite the fact that Harry dribbles a little on the stag's coat, but James hasn't noticed yet, thinking the wet is from rain water. After several minutes James begins to grow tired (and rather bored of circling the garden - it's not that big or exciting), and thankfully Harry has started to nod off and Lily sweeps him into her arms again. She watches as James changes back into a human.

"You make a marvellous donkey," she tells him once he has ten fingers and ten toes again. "Fancy moving to Dorset and starting a riding business?"

James decides kissing her to death at that point is a good enough punishment for such a remark, but Lily pushes him away. "You have grass breath. Kindly bugger off."

"Sorry," he apologizes. Rather unattractively, he spits out some blades of grass that somehow got stuck in his teeth while he was Prongs.

"I think we should owl Remus later, by the way," Lily mentions. She's wearing a sly grin and James wonders if he stepped in something smelly on his walkabout of the garden.

"Why?" he answers dreadfully, jealousy getting the better of him. "Oh for God's sake, I refuse him coming over and having to sit listening to you two talk about books for three hours again. I didn't think literature orgasms were possible until I put you, Remus, and bloody Shakespeare in a room."

"_No_," Lily says, a little disturbed by books creating sexual climax, though anything was possible with that particular werewolf. "I want Remus to baby-sit Harry for us."

"Why? What will we be doing?"

Lily has to laugh at his obliviousness. "I don't know about you, but _I_ will be rewarding you for a smile." She raises her eyebrows suggestively.

After a pregnant pause, James' eyes grow wide. "Oh!" He wants to brush his teeth. And do other things. Mainly involving Lily. And clean teeth. "I say we owl Remus now," he says eagerly.

"Floo him, it's quicker."

They make the rather hurried journey back to the house.

"I love you," he says for no particular reason.

"I know."

"Actually, I was talking to Harry - but I rather love you too."


	8. Face the music

**_A/N_: **This one was written for my lovely friend Sarah's birthday (_ghostofbambi_ on here, an excellent author), under the prompt 'celebrate'. Thanks for reading!

**8. Face the music**

_You are cordially invited to celebrate  
the wedding of  
Petunia Evans  
and  
Vernon Dursley…_

Many negative thoughts spring to Lily's mind upon reading this invitation:

1) _Cordially?_ When has her sister ever felt like warmly inviting her anywhere besides a pit of knives beyond a sign saying, 'FREAKS, FALL IN HERE'?

2) Really now, what was there to celebrate about a horse and a whale getting together, if only to commemorate the very bizarre and unsettling breeding that would initiate?

3) Is there a way I can get out of this?

4) No. There isn't.

5) Now, don't be hasty. You could always-

6) No. No, you can't give the excuse of grieving over your dead mother because you very well share the same mother as Petunia. And your mother is still alive. And will probably be attending the wedding.

7) Shit.

* * *

It's been exactly four days since James has found the invitation to Petunia's wedding in the pocket of Lily's jacket, and, irksomely, she still hasn't brought it up to him. James has tried everything – humming the wedding march, throwing bouquets of flowers at her face (she wasn't best pleased about that), or even just bluntly bringing up in conversation, "So… weddings, huh? How's that sister you loathe?" Yet she has still kept quiet.

One evening when they're walking home late from dinner at a restaurant, (James likes to soften up his "victims" by stuffing their bellies with food and getting the truth out of them that way), he asks Lily offhandedly, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"Only that I think I ate so much back there I may have accidentally swallowed a waiter," she replies, looking bloated.

"Other than that." James stops her walking any further. "Anything? Anything at all?"

Lily reckons he knows, but risks a lie just in case she can get away with it. "No?"

James sighs at her. "You're a complete liar, but I still love you." He brings out the wedding invitation from the back pocket of his jeans and waves it in front of her face. "Look what I found."

"That's where that went!" She tries to pinch it back but he holds it out of her reach.

"When were you going to plan on telling me about this?"

"Eventually…" She looks down at her feet. "Look, to be honest, I don't think I'm going to go."

James looks confused. "What do you mean you're not going to go? This is your sister's wedding."

Lily stares at him. "Repeat that sentence and realize who you're talking to and who exactly this involves."

"Alright, so I can understand why you don't want to go since you don't get along with her-" Lily snorts derisively at the understatement "-but I'm sure she still loves you-"

"She hasn't loved me since we were eleven years old, James."

He falls for a silent for a moment, then -

"_I've_ loved you since I was eleven years old..."

"Oh shut up," she says for embarrassing her, smacking him in the shoulder with a smile.

"I'm sure there must be some love still there," James goes on reluctantly, "since she is inviting you to this."

Lily hates him for putting the idea of Petunia changing into a better person - a person that accepts her for the witch she is - into her head. "I bet mum made her invite me," she mumbles stubbornly.

"Well, go for your mother, then," James offers. Lily remains disgruntled. "Go, because if you don't, your sister has won." Lily looks less disgruntled. "Go to… outshine the bride?" Lily is no longer disgruntled in any shape or form.

"I like that idea." She points at him. "I like that idea a lot, James Potter."

He grins. "So it's settled, then. You're going to the wedding." His hand automatically goes to the small of her back and they begin walking again. "I'll even come with you, if you want."

"Of course you're bloody coming! If I have to go to this celebration of disgustingness then so do you."

"Yes, I would love to accompany you to your sister's wedding. Thank you for asking me."

Suddenly, Lily stops moving, and regrettably to James starts emitting an anguished noise similar to a seal giving birth. "Oh _no_…" She bends over and puts her head in between her knees.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm going to… I'm going to have to wear a _hat_."

James looks fairly bemused.

"An ugly wedding hat," Lily goes on. "All women are forced to wear them for such a social event. It'll probably be excessively large with feathers."

* * *

The hat is excessively large with feathers.

Whenever James tries to kiss Lily he ends up poking his eye out with the rim of it. He sneezes whenever the feathers tickle his nose when Lily is standing close to him.

James is frowning at his reflection in the mirror – they're getting ready for the wedding. James is wearing a suit for the first time.

"I look like a stiff penguin, Lily."

"You can't wear your robes, James," Lily rolls her eyes at him. She notices he's struggling doing his tie and does it for him. "Very sexy," she comments.

"Better on your bedroom floor, though."

Lily looks at him as though she doesn't know what he's talking about, until agreeing reluctantly, "Better on my bedroom floor, yes."

A smirk spreads across his face as he checks his watch. "We might have a bit of time for a quick—"

"Don't even think about it." Lily hooks arms with a disappointed James and steers him towards the door. "Let's face the music."

Though apparently all the attention should be on the bride – and it pretty much is — particularly when she comes down the aisle, she's grabbed everyone's interest but one: James. Because as far as he's concerned, Lily is the most beautiful in the room, even with that ghastly hat shaped like a spaceship. She's wearing a summery yellow dress, and even though it strangely resembles the colour of custard, never has he wanted to touch custard more than now.

"James, face the front," Lily whispers to him out of the corner of his mouth.

_Yes, Professor McGonagall,_ he responds in his mind.

"Can't. Must touch custard…" His hand drifts towards Lily's thigh, but she slaps it away, reminding him her mother is sitting right beside her. Mrs Evans stares at James suspiciously.

He turns his attention back on the bride and groom settling at the altar. He supposes Petunia does look quite pretty… for a horse wearing a dress. He never knew such animals could stand on their hind legs.

"You would have made a good bridesmaid, you know," James whispers to Lily, spotting one of Petunia's bridesmaids and finding her rather plain in comparison to Lily.

"An _exceptional_ bridesmaid," she corrects him. "Now shhh," she puts a finger to her lips –lips he wants to very much kiss right now rather than be shoved tightly in a pew in the House of God — and points to the front. "They're starting."

"Yes dear."

"Dearly beloved," a voice booms from the front. "We are gathered here today…"

The vicar's speech goes through one ear out of the other though - Lily's custard dress is just too inviting, and if he doesn't kiss her soon he might explode. Unable to hold back any longer, he swoops down to kiss her quickly while Mrs. Evans isn't looking, but he goes at such a clumsy speed he bangs his nose against the edge of Lily's wedding hat.

"If anyone of you knows of a lawful reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your—"

"NOSEBLEED!"

All attention is on James Potter who has promptly leapt out of the pew he was seated at with a hand covering half of his face.

"DOES ANYONE HAVE A TISSUE?"

Lily slowly sinks in her seat.

* * *

"I am never letting you out again, James Potter," Lily tells him later at the wedding reception, almost spilling champagne on her dress as she shakes with laugher. She hiccups quietly into her glass of bubbly.

"How's your nose, mister?" she asks, touching the tip of it with her finger.

"Alright, I suppose." He watches her stroke his nose and playfully pretends to bite her hand. She giggles and snuggles closer to him. He tries to kiss her, but she's still wearing that damn hat and nearly inhales a feather by mistake while bashing his forehead against the rim of it. "Ow!"

Lily rubs the sore spot, but he's clearly miffed. "The hat goes," he says before she can argue, whipping the revolting headwear off her head and over his shoulder. It lands on the dancefloor and someone steps on it by accident, much to James' delight. Once the hat is gone, he kisses her like no tomorrow.

"James! My parents are watching!" Lily says embarrassedly, but Mr. and Mrs. Evans are too caught up in each other dancing to even steal a glance their way. "I think it's time to dance," she decides.

James has other ideas on his mind. "I'd rather just sit in this very dark corner with you and have drunken snogs."

"Dancing. _Now._"

"Yes dear."

They get to the dancefloor in the middle of a slow song, but clearly Lily doesn't want to wait for the song to finish so they can dance to the next one. She's always been a good dancer; she doesn't move to the music, the _music_ moves to _her_. James just does whatever he can with his feet and hopes for the best. She hooks her arms around his neck while he slides his arms around her tiny waist as they gently sway.

"Thanks for convincing me to come, James." She smiles into his chest. "I've surprisingly had a good time."

"It's the champagne talking," he jokes.

In the reflection of James' glasses, Lily spots Petunia sidling up to them on the dance floor from behind, lifting up the edges of her dress so they don't drag across the floor. She spins round at once, letting go of James' shoulders, quick to sincerely apologize. "Petunia, I'm sorry again about what James did earlier. He's such a silly sod sometimes-"

"I wish you'd never come."

Splashes of colour from the disco lights keep illuminate Petunia's skin with different shades of glow. Lily finds it distracting and wishes someone would turn them off, because she's finding it hard to take Petunia seriously when she's blue, and then green, and then red. She certainly doesn't look like she cordially invited Lily at all. Is she angry because of James' accident back at the church? She can feel James' hand on her shoulder.

"Petunia, I thought you wanted me here."

No longer is anybody dancing. All you can hear are the soft keys of the piano that almost seem inappropriate right now. This moment needs drums of aggression; piercing vocals; noise. As Petunia inches near Lily, it's almost as if she's eleven years old again with the Hogwarts letter in her hand.

"I invited you out of _pity_," her sister snarls.

"Petunia!" Mr. Evans says crossly. "Don't say such a thing! Stop this!"

Petunia goes on a vicious whisper, ignoring their father. "I invited you out of pity because this is as close as you'll ever get to witnessing and being part of a perfect, _normal_ wedding. God knows that when you have a wedding with that-" her eyes drift on James for a second and she scowls "-_freak_ of a fiancé of yours, it won't be anything in comparison to this-"

Petunia's words hit her like a slap in the face, which is exactly why Lily does the same back, except the satisfaction of her hand connecting hard with the pale skin of Petunia's cheek (blue from the disco light, but now a startling red) is much better than low name-calling.

Lily bends her knees in a courtesy, before storming from the hall, her shoes clanking against the expensive wooden floor. James swears she's trying to purposely create dents in it. He is quick to follow her.

He finds her outside soon after, rubbing the chills in her exposed arms, muttering angrily to herself words that dissolve in smokey clouds of cold air.

"She makes me so bloody angry, James." She needs another drink, or ten, to warm her up and make her forget about what just happened, but settles for James' arms wrapping around her instead.

"I'm sorry for making you come to this, it was a stupid idea," he apologizes. "And don't you listen to what Petunia said back there. Our wedding is going to be the best wedding in the Wizarding world, you'll see." He hugs her tighter. "You'll look so beautiful in your dress guests will be fainting at your feet. There'll be the best wizard band, a chocolate fountain..." He tries to think of other fancy things to list, then realizes he wouldn't really mind a wedding without the lavish, pricey extravagances. He just wants Lily as his wife.

"I'm not angry because she said that, James. I could marry you in a toilet and I wouldn't care. This – showing people how much money you can waste in a day - isn't what weddings are about. I just…" She exhales. "I just want my sister back." The sad reality is she knows she never will. "That sister I had when I was little who would braid my hair and put daises in between the plaits… The one that loved me."

James doesn't quite know what to say, until –

"I could braid your hair. Actually, that's a lie. I have no idea how to braid. But Sirius does! Though he oddly only knows how to do it when he's drunk." Lily smothers a laugh. "And as for loving you-" he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear "-I can, and pretty much always will, love you until my dying day."

"Oh shut up." She hits him in the stomach for making her blush. "Merlin, you are so embarrassing."

"You wanna go home?"

She hugs his midriff. "Yeah."

They get ready to leave, but someone clears a throat behind them: it's Petunia, her cheek now a faint pink.

"Your hat." Petunia holds Lily's battered spaceship of a headwear for her to take. James looks displeased at its reappearance.

"Thanks," Lily says roughly, snatching the hat from her sister's hand. Not being able to stand the sight of her any longer, she Disapparates.

When she's back in her own living room, she expects James by her side, but he hasn't arrived yet. After a few more seconds, he enters the room with a pop. She's about to ask what took him so long, but the giant wedding cake in his hand provides an explanation. Lily gawks at James.

"You _stole_ their _cake?!_"

"Yep." James takes the small icing figurine of a groom at the top of it that supposedly represents Vernon Dursley, and bites off his head. "You want some?"

Lily considers her answer. "I'm too hungry to scold you for your tomfoolery," she says, taking the bride figurine and intending to decapitate it in a similar fashion to its husband, until she spots something out of the corner of her eye: a napkin in her hat. Looking closer, there's writing on it – Petunia's.

_I'm sorry._

Lily breaks into a watery smile, then she replaces the bride figurine back on top of the cake next to her headless groom.


	9. Mirror messages

**A/N:** Written for the prompt 'baby'. Thanks for all the lovely feedback, love you all!

**9. Mirror messages**

"When we get a house together," James tells Lily, "we shouldn't get separate bathrooms."

This statement could be considered normal if James wasn't _fifteen_, and Lily wasn't _also fifteen_, a firm believer in hating every smug inch of James Potter. She's not thinking about buying houses, but if she were to buy one she would rather share a home with a troll with bad wind problems than the boy sitting behind the desk in front of her.

"What makes you think I will ever even _consider_ sleeping under the same roof as you?"

With an impish grin, he leans further against her desk, one arm sliding against the surface and pushing the edge of Lily's parchment so much it curls. A vein in her forehead throbs.

"You forget we live in the same castle - that's practically one roof, Evans."

"Potter, why do you refuse to leave me alone?"

"Because you so obviously like the attention."

"_I beg your pardon?_ I do _not_—Potter! Potter, don't you dare turn around when I'm talking to you! Pay attention to me!"

James spins back round, haughtier than ever. "I rest my case," he says simply.

"The only case involved here is the _casket_ you'll be resting in."

James doesn't look at all mortified by the death threat. "Just remember, Evans: no separate bathrooms. I foresee it."

"_I_ foresee my foot up your arse."

Their exchange is interrupted by McGonagall demanding James face the front of the classroom, and he does what he's told, not without winking first at Lily, then making a cheeky remark to the professor that sends the class into giggles—all the class but one. She refuses to giggle; she refuses to shape even a trace of amusement in her face as she glares at his back through the entire duration of the hour.  
---------------

James is pretty damn good at foreseeing, because years later Lily's just bought a house with the madman, a house with no separate bathrooms. 

Lily takes her first shower in their joint restroom. Predictably, the room steams up from the heat of the water. After wrapping a towel round her and stepping out of the shower, she notices the mirror above the sink is steamed up, but there's a message across it that spoils what could have been a blank canvas of condensation: _i love you,_ and it's so obviously from James because he posses a fascination with lowercase, and he loves embarrassing her in the most bizarre ways.

On a natural high (mirror messages do that to you), Lily hugs James from behind seconds later in the kitchen.

"The mirror just proclaimed its love to me. I must look exceptionally pretty today."

"Too bloody right," he agrees with the latter of what she says, turning round and kissing her forehead. "Nice shower?"

"Lovely." She smiles into his chest. "Especially that mirror message from you. Very sweet."

James pulls away from her a little; Lily looks up at him, confused by the clueless look across his face.

"What are you talking about? I haven't even been in the bathroom."

Lily suddenly can't breathe. "But… Oh my—"

"No, I'm kidding. I wrote the message." James grins down at her. "You absolutely shat yourself for a second, though."

It's only their first night in Godric's Hollow and James is already sent to sleep on the couch.  
---------------

The second time Lily finds a message on the steamed mirror, she almost drops the towel she's holding to her body. The letters have trails where the dew has slid down the length of the surface, but two words are still very distinguishable:

_marry me?_

Lily writes underneath:

_yes_

"Loo's free, Mr. Potter," she tells him, coming out of the bathroom. 

"Thanks for letting me know, Mrs Potter."

He plants a keen kiss on her cheek, whistling as he enters the bathroom. Lily smiles after him.  
---------------  
James is the master at surprising Lily with mirror messages, which is why he's so taken aback when he comes out of the shower and finds a message of his own:

_i'm pregnant_

His eyes grow wide as dinner plates; as force of habit, he can't help his hand running through his hair in astonishment. Trembling, he touches the letters on the steamed mirror to make sure they're real, and they are, because his fingertips stain the vapour and leave imprints behind. Wiping more of the condensation away, he spots Lily's face in the reflection standing behind him. He spins round at once.

"Are you…" His hands fiddle with the towel around his waist. "Are you sure?"

"To quote the test: positive."

Just as James is about to whoop in celebration, he studies Lily's face and finds… fear.

"What's wrong?" He jumps to conclusions. "Do you not want-" He won't say _it_, because it's not an _it_, it's a she, or a he (he hopes it's—_the baby_, is a he). He starts again, "Do you not want this baby?"

"Of course I want this baby!" Lily is a little upset that he would doubt she wouldn't want his child. "It's just…" Her voice turns quiet and ill at ease. "The world isn't safe right now." She speaks the truth; Lord Voldemort is high in power and followers more than anything these days.

"When is it ever?" James is quick to craftily point out.

"But… the timing is all wrong."

"When has it ever been good timing with us, Lily?" He takes her hands in his and smiles.

"You make two very fine points," she admits, now a little brighter than before, returning his smile with her own. James stares at her stomach, picturing their baby inside, and is filled up with excited jubilation. Never has he been so thrilled by the prospect of his wife having a stomach as round as a melon.

"Everything is going to be fine," he reassures her, wrapping his arms around her frame. "I don't need a steamed mirror to tell you this: our baby will be safe no matter what, I swear to you." He cracks a grin all of a sudden. "In fact, I foresee it."

Last time he said that they were just fifteen, and what he foretold came true. And Lily trusts him, trusts him more than herself sometimes, so she nods and hugs him hard until the dread goes away.  
---------------

Turns out James' foreseeing is still pretty damn good, because nine months later a healthy boy is born with the greenest of eyes, like that grass that's greener on the other side, and a mop of messy hair that could rival his father's. His name is Harry. Sirius likes to call him Mini James, but with more manners. James likes to punch Sirius very hard in the face.

One day James brings Harry into the bathroom and up to the familiar steamed mirror above the sink.

"Shall we write your name?"

James takes Harry's little hand, helping him point out his forefinger. Gently, he presses Harry's finger to the mirror, moving it up and down and around to form letters - very unintelligible letters, but letters nonetheless. James smiles at their handiwork.

"See that?" He points at the scrawl on the mirror. "That's your name, that is."

He rubs a bit of the condensation with the end of his sleeve so some of their reflection is visible. "Do you see that bloke there?" James says to baby Harry. "That's your handsome daddy. And do you see that other bloke there? That better-looking one?" He points again. "That's you, Harry."

He lets out a gurgle James can only assume is a noise of agreeing amusement.

"Dinner's ready!" calls Lily from downstairs. "Where are my two favourite boys?"

James grins down at his son. "That's us, mate."  
---------------

"Harry?"

Fifteen year old Harry James Potter stares at the misted mirror in Hogwarts with strange fascination. He touches it with his fingertip, careful, like touching flames, and doing so makes a small dot - he can see faint lines that make up his fingerprint in the mark. He doesn't know why doing this—blemishing the haze of a mirror—evokes such an emotion of wistfulness. It just does. He vaguely remembers being spellbound by writing on steamed up surfaces when he was younger. He'd purposely breathe air at car windows just so he could write a message as some form of interaction, even if it was to himself. God knows back then he'd rather have written on clouded car windows than suffer communicating with his cousin Dudley.

"Harry," Ron says again, stepping into the doorway of the bathroom. "Are you coming for breakfast or what?"

Harry realizes the mirror is absorbing him as much as the Mirror of Erised did. Reluctantly, though at haste, he wipes the condensation away with the sleeve of his jumper.

"Yeah," he answers Ron eventually. He's amused by the idea that his friend must think he's suddenly become extraordinarily vain, staring at a mirror so much. "Yeah, I'm coming."


	10. Roundabout kisses

**A/N:** Chapter 21 of YGMHP is in the process of being beta-ed. Have some drabbles in the mean time?

**10. Roundabout kisses**

There were many things Lily Evans frowned upon: bad treatment of House-Elves, bullying, cheaters, facial hair, narcissism, talking in the library, public displays of affection…

But something—_someone_—who topped the list of being the most frowned upon was none other than James Potter.

She gave another sigh as the boy pressed his face against the door window of the train compartment she was seated inside. She was on the journey home from Hogwarts and sixth year had ended relatively well. There had been only two recorded accounts of nearly killing James. Last year it had been seventeen.

Though, as his nose was pushed against the glass, nostrils plainly on show, she had a feeling the score would notch up to three…

"Aren't you going to do something about that?" Lily's friend Isabel gestured at James thumping the glass to let him in.

"Just ignore him and he'll go away," Lily replied in a low voice, returning to reading a book in her lap.

"Maybe you should just let him in."

"He's not coming in here," Lily said at once. She'd made sure to lock the compartment securely, a problem for Isabel as she needed the toilet at least half an hour ago.

"Lily, please don't hate me," Isabel pleaded suddenly.

She looked up from her book to eye her friend strangely. "If you don't give me a reason to hate you, then I won't."

Isabel bit her lip in worry.

"You've given me a reason to hate you, haven't you?" Lily's saw through her quickly. "What exactly have you done?"

Isabel stood up, pointing accusingly to James outside. "He tricked me!"

Lily turned even more nervous by the fact that James Potter was involved somehow. "What has he got to do with whatever you're talking about?" she demanded.

"I…" Isabel swallowed, took a deep breath, and blurted out, "I might have slipped to Potter your home address."

Lily exploded.

"You did _what?_"

"He cornered me!" Isabel pointed to James again. "He made puppy dog eyes and everything! And he gave me chocolate!"

Lily couldn't believe her ears. "Have you no self-control?" She threw up her hands. "How could you give him my home address? He knows where I live now, thank you very bloody much!"

"It's just an address," Isabel attempted to make it out as though it wasn't a big deal, but it wasn't going down very well at all.

"Oh God." Lily was sitting down; face pale, head between her knees. "Oh God he's going to turn up at my house and eat my food. He's going to try and _meet my parents._"

Isabel let out a nervous laugh. "I'm sure he wouldn't do that…"

Mutually, the girls looked over at James who was waving at them with the most ill-behaved smile they'd ever seen.

"Oh no."

-------

"Mum, can we move?" Lily asked the second they'd got home.

Mrs Evans shot her a blank stare before replying with a flat, "No."

_Bollocks,_ Lily thought, trudging to her bedroom. _I was so sure that would have worked…_

-------

"Mum, can I just say that that if a boy happens to turn up at the door, you should either not answer it, or call the police."

Mrs Evans shot her the usual blank stare. "Why would I call the police?"

"Because…" Her eyes darted wildly as she fumbled for an excuse. "Because on the news there was a report of a boy who escaped the local mental asylum." She frowned at herself for coming up with something so bizarre, but continued regardless, "The boy is crazy and could kill you… with… with just his little toe." She stuck out her foot and wiggled it.

Her mother let out a snort. "Are you quite sure we don't need to send _you_ to this mental asylum, love?"

"_Mum!_" Lily said, scandalized. "Mum, just… don't answer the door to a boy with messy hair and glasses, alright?"

"Alright, alright."

-------

"Dad! Dad, don't answer the door! Dad, don't do it!"

"Lily, for goodness sake, it's the bloody milkman!"

"… As you were."

-------

"Lily, what is the matter with you?" Mrs Evans questioned her daughter at dinner. It had been a week since Lily had come home from Hogwarts and her nervous behaviour had not gone unnoticed. "You've been acting strange ever since you got back from school."

"I'm fine, mum," Lily reassured her, hating it when her mother made a fuss.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Lily's eyes grew wide. "Who's that?" she whispered fearfully.

"If you answer the door maybe you'll find out," her sister Petunia sneered from across the table. Lily was too anxious by the idea of it being James to even formulate a smart retort.

"I'll get it!" She jumped to her feet and thrust her father, who was on his way of getting up for the door, back into his seat. "Don't get up! Nobody move! I'll get it!"

She shut the kitchen door behind her and hurried across the hallway to the front door, all the while chanting in her mind, _please don't be Potter, please don't be Potter, please don't be Potter,_ though she strangely noticed the "don't" part was not as firm as she imagined.

But when she swung open the door it wasn't James - it was a neighbour, babbling on about a beloved missing cat. She hadn't really been listening, busy overwhelmed by the feeling of… disappointment, was it? Was she upset that it hadn't been James at her door? If she was, she'd never admit it to herself.

"May I be excused?" she asked once back in the kitchen and the neighbour gone. "I'm fine, mum," she added, noticing her mother's perturbing gaze upon her. "Really, I am."

Eventually her father nodded, and she made the journey up the staircase to her room. Once inside, she wandered over to her bedroom window and pulled back the curtain a fraction, gazing through the pane and out into the gloom of the cold night air, the only source of illumination a dim streetlamp flickering by her house. She swore for just a small moment, when the glow of the streetlight lit up an area of the ground, that there was a figure standing below.

_It's been seven days, Potter,_ Lily thought, sitting on the edge of her bed, no company but darkness. _Come already._

-------  
Summer days were long and passed slower than usual. She normally relished in Summer, but her heart ached to be back in Hogwarts more than anything. Home meant being in the company of her sister, and Petunia had become more annoying with age. She'd been in contact with Isabel; she always asked Lily if Potter had turned up at her house yet. He hadn't. And she hadn't got any sleep because of that factor.

On the last day of Summer she couldn't sleep more than anything, even knowing she'd be returning to school the next day, as a Seventh Year, as a _Head Girl._ At four in the morning she crept out of bed and went into the kitchen for a glass of water.

It was when she was sipping from the glass she heard a knock at the door, a knock so faint that it could only be heard from anyone who was downstairs with good hearing.

"It's _four in the morning,_" Lily said under her breath, slamming down her glass of water and marching to the front door. "It better not be bloody kids messing about…"

She was exactly right as she pulled open the door, except there was only one bloody kid there, and he went by the name of James Potter. She sucked in a gasp at his arrival. His chest was heaving for air, a broom over his shoulder, his hair handsomely windswept, and he was shaking (though she wasn't sure if it was from nerves judging by his uneasy expression, or the chilliness). Meeting each other's eyes caused them both to blush. She tied her dressing gown tighter around her body and smoothed down her bed hair.

"Potter," she murmured, not quite believing it. "Do you realize the time?"

"Sorry," he finally spoke up, and Lily marvelled at how embarrassed he sounded. "Would you… come take a walk with me somewhere?"

She didn't know where Somewhere was, but she had a feeling it could be Anywhere and she would go with him regardless. She glanced upstairs and thought of her parents - she could get away with it if she was quiet enough. "Alright," she agreed, grabbing a coat and scarf and putting on a pair of shoes. She shut the door softly after her with a click and walked with him to the small park just across from her house.

"You flew over here?" she asked taken aback, staring at the familiar broom that was never separated from his side in Hogwarts.

"Yeah… your house is quite a long way. My bollocks hurt and I can't really feel my fingers right now," he admitted, and Lily let out a laugh at his pain.

They entered the park for somewhere to sit down; James put down his broom and went straight for the roundabout.

"Not a fan of the swings?" Lily said, following him.

"Don't swing both ways," he quipped, and Lily raised an eyebrow, not sure if she preferred the Potter before that was tense to the Potter now that was confident and making rather amusing jokes.

She was surprised when he hadn't gotten on the roundabout yet; he was waiting for her to get on first, much like a gentleman. She snorted in disbelief as she stepped on, grabbing a bar as James immediately started running to spin it.

"Not too fast!" she complained, clinging for her life.

"Faster's always better," he grinned, hopping onto the roundabout and swinging his head back.

There was nothing else to focus on but him, everything around her blurs and blobs that rushed as they twirled around her in a mix of dizzy colours.

"You had all summer to come see me." Lily savoured the breeze and the light-headedness of spinning. "Yet you left it to the last minute, like always." She sent him the usual unimpressed look that insisted she was right - as always, too.

"Actually," James hopped off for a second so he could spin the roundabout faster, "I came to your house every night."

Lily tried to take in his words as she stuck to the bars tighter.

"You know that streetlight right outside your house?" James leaped back onto the roundabout and stared at her from across it with a gaze that was both intense but capturing. "Every night I've flown here and leant against that streetlight, looked up at your bedroom window-" he looked up at that second, as though imagining it in his mind "-and wondered what the _hell_ to say to you if I knocked on the door and you answered." He gave a feeble shrug. "Couldn't think of anything," he confessed shamefully

Lily struggled with one hand to tighten her scarf around her neck exposed to the cool air. "The mighty James Potter, one who always knows what to say, drawn to a blank," she said quietly.

"Suppose that's how much you have a maddening impact on me," James concluded, and Lily looked away with tinting red cheeks.

"I'm Head Boy," James said all of a sudden. He sounded nervous again, as though he was worried he wasn't capable to fulfil the position.

"How ironic," Lily sighed at James with a curl in her mouth. "I'm Head Girl."

Suddenly being Head Boy didn't seem so scary to James. "We'll be working close together, then," he smirked.

"Depends what your definition of 'close' means," Lily sent him a wry smile.

As the roundabout sped faster than ever, she watched James twist his eyes shut and let his head fall back, boldly letting go of the bars and spreading out his arms like wings. The robes he was wearing blew back a little, almost giving him the impression of standing on the edge of a windy cliff, smiling like a fool. Lily wanted to feel that. She shut her eyes as well, releasing her hands from the bar, though not as willingly as James. She instantly began to wobble and let out a yelp.

"Careful." James was suddenly at her side, one hand holding onto her waist, his fingers interlocking with hers in the other. She was about to launch into a spectacle of how inappropriate he was being—no matter how pleasant it was—when he hushed her, closing her eyes again with the tips of his fore and middle finger.

She stood still as the roundabout continued to spin, silent and blind, the warmth of James enfolding her making her even dizzier.

"Scared?" he whispered close to her ear.

_Of what I undeniably feel for you,_ Lily answered in her mind, _yes._ Yet of falling… not so much.

She could feel him squeeze her tighter to him, soft lips meeting her mouth. Her arms curled round his neck as she pulled him closer, thinking difficult as giddiness enveloped her. At that moment, when all she could hear was the wind rushing serenely passed her ears, the indescribable sensation of flying, James' velvety mouth, she concluded roundabout kisses were kisses of the best kind.

She let off a yelp against his lips as she felt herself wobble again, falling and bringing James with her to a crash against the tarmac below.

"Graceful," James commented painfully on his back. "You okay?" He checked Lily over. She was laughing uncontrollably on her side, green eyes brighter than ever, stretching as though she'd just awaken from a deep sleep. She gave a little nod to him, smiling. She could lie there forever, but remembering they'd be taking the Hogwarts Express back to school in just a few hours prompted her back to reality.

She said, albeit reluctantly, "I should be getting back."

James pouted a little, but stood up anyway, readjusting his askew glasses from the fall.

He looked down at her lying there—_she looks like a fallen angel_—and stretched out his hand for her to take.

"One more?" he asked hopefully.

Her lips quirked as she let him pull her to her feet. Spinning one final time, James grinned into her hair, "It'll be a pleasure working with you," and she thought the exact same thing, breathing him in.


	11. In your shoes

**A/N:** For Morgan's birthday! Written for prompt "reverse". Feedback is always appreciated :)

**11. In your shoes**

If you don't ask, you don't get – this was James Potter's philosophy to life. As an only child from a relatively wealthy family, he learned this from a very young age. There was one occasion he accidentally blew up the shed with his broom inside, so he simply asked, "Mum, can I have a new one?"

And, as expected, he got a new broom - the latest model, too. Though, if anybody asks, the old broom was stolen by a gang of Arabian thieves.

And then there was that other time...

_"Mum, can I have a new wand?"_

_"What's wrong with the one you have now?"_

_"Sirius' is longer."_

_"It's not about length, it's about how you use it… Please say 'wand' is not a euphemism for your-"_

_"Oh God. Oh God, no. I'll be going to my room now."_

Oh, and that other incident...

_"Mum, can I have a brother?"_

But by that point in his life Sirius had come along and that was the end of that.

Then, one fine day he encountered the enigma that was Lily Evans. And what did she—she and her stupid, pretty clips in her hair and long, dazzling eyelashes—go and bloody do? Botch up his philosophy. Took his philosophy by the horns and shoved it right up his arse for all to witness.

Lily was the first girl he'd ever asked out. He'd practised asking all the night before to a mirror (a magical one that can speak back and make fun of your eyebrows). He'd planned to approach her like a true gentleman, but instead he came across as a sports fan hallooing at a Quidditch match.

They were in the Great Hall at the time; all waiting eyes were on them after Sirius got everyone's attention by tapping his goblet of pumpkin juice with a fork, as though James Potter asking out a girl should be gazed upon like a wedding toast. Lily's cheeks were a bright red – James remembered, they reminded him of poppies.

"You think asking me in front of the entire school will heighten your chances of me accepting?" she'd said in a low whisper.

"Don't you hate peer pressure?" James grinned. It was quite clear he was confident her answer would be a yes, which was why he was so surprised her answer was-

"No."

And this had baffled him more than anything he'd ever come across, because whatever thing he asked for in the past he always got. Every time. Yet here he was, asking and not getting. For fifteen years he'd put himself on a pedestal where he got everything he ever asked for, then Lily Evans had come along and kicked him off it. It had been pretty cosy up there; down below in reality it was cold and harsh.

Later that evening, James asked Remus where he'd gone wrong. O wise one had replied in that o wise tone of his, "Asking her out so publicly was not particularly wise," and James could fairly see where he was wisely coming from.

So Lily wanted privacy. And James gave her privacy. He asked her out for a second time the next day - in privacy, like a good boy.

He was rejected yet again.

He'd asked and still not gotten.

He soon grew tired of the private approach and went back to asking her out publicly, noisily, and constantly, because he also learned from a very young age that if you ask the first time and don't get what you want, try and try again. So what if Lily didn't accept the first time? So what if Lily didn't accept the thirty first time? So what if Lily didn't accept the… James had forgotten what number exactly they were on now. Did it border in the hundreds?

He knew one day he'd crack, get sick of the rejections. There was only so many times you could put on a happy face and pretend that you were perfectly fine being persistently rejected by the girl you might possibly be in love with. But the incident by the Great Lake had been the last straw for him. Not only had Lily stuck up for Snape, she'd gone on a tirade of a speech about how he was basically lower than pond scum. At the time he hadn't really minded her telling him off in front of their classmates - words like that rolled off him like water off a duck's back. But when he thought about it later, Lily's words had really stung ("You're just an arrogant, bullying toerag!" "Fat head!" "Showing off!" "You make me sick!")

He sought her out and had to ask a question that had been bothering him for a while, "What the hell do you want from me?"

He presumed another one of her maddening speeches would follow, but her words were soft and in measured tones.

"I _want_ you to think of someone other than yourself for once. I _want_ you to put yourself in somebody else's shoes - hell, maybe even mine."

There was a pregnant pause.

"My feet are too big for your shoes," James answered quietly, and as Lily sighed through her nose and turned on a heel, he had a feeling the joke was not appreciated.

* * *

James was having the worst dream imaginable.

He was by the Great Lake, but roles had clearly been reversed. Instead of Snape being hung in the air, Sirius was, by Lily's wand. James ran over from the lake edge and stared up at his levitated friend with horror.

"Leave him ALONE!"

"All right, Potter?" replied Lily casually.

"Leave him alone," he said again. "What's he done to you?"

"Well, it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean…"

Laughter echoed throughout the grounds.

"You think you're funny," he said coldly. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Evans. Leave him _alone_."

"I will if you go out with me, Potter. Go on, go out with me."

Onlookers giggled and sniggered. He'd never felt so humiliated.

"Potter," Lily ran her hand down his cheek. "Don't make me hex you--"

"James!"

He woke up panting and his skin covered in sweat. Sirius had been shaking him by his shoulders to rouse him from his dream, and it had worked. When James sat up Sirius let him go, but the worry in his eyes didn't leave so quickly.

"You were tossing and turning," Sirius said. He sat on the edge of James' bed, studying his friend with concern. James looked as though he was going to be sick. "You okay?"

Flushed, James raked a hand through his damp hair. "You know how you can put yourself in someone else's shoes and get a new perspective of things?" Sirius roughly knew what he was talking about, sending him a small nod of understanding. "Well… I just did that with Lily, except I put myself in her shoes and fucking _danced_ in them."

Sirius sighed at him. "Why do you always let yourself get so worked about this girl?"

James shrugged at him in defeat. "I don't know," he answered softly.

Sirius stared at him for a second before gently patting the top of James' head and murmuring, "Just… go back to sleep." Sirius dragged his feet back to his bed, and sleep overcame him the second his jet black hair hit the pillow.

James never really did get back to sleep that night.

* * *

"I did it."

Lily looked up into James' sad eyes at the bottom of the staircase of Gryffindor's common room.

"Did what?"

"I put myself in your shoes."

Lily put down the quill she was writing her essay with. "And?"

James shut his eyes and opened them again. "And now I don't want to go back in mine."

Before she could say anything, he was gone.

She hung her head in regret.

* * *

In two years James changed, except he didn't like to say he changed, he liked to say he rediscovered himself - who he truly was as a person. Because he didn't want to be known as what Lily yelled at him that day by the lake—_you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag_—no, he refused to let those words be engraved into his gravestone. He hadn't changed completely; he still liked to muck about with his mates, he just didn't think hexing anybody who annoyed him was necessary anymore, and touching his hair so much made it greasy anyway, and playing with Snitches was really a waste of time when he was a Chaser.

Lily noticed.

* * *

James couldn't find his shoes.

"Where are my shoes?" he threw the question to the walls of his dormitory, truly the only things that would suffer listening to him without being able to make any snide remarks in return. "Did you steal them?" He looked accusingly at Sirius from across the room.

"Why would I steal your shoes, you Head Nonce?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's your dirty little secret: a shoe fetish." He looked under his bed for his footwear but still no avail. "And it's Head _Boy_," he corrected Sirius much too late. "The initials on the badge are HB."

"Which obviously stands for _Humongous Bottom?_"

James landed a pillow squarely into Sirius' face. They were in the middle of wrestling each other when someone knocked at the door. The boys looked over and saw it was Lily at the doorway. The boys sprung apart like two guilty sons caught by their mother. Sirius realized it was his cue to leave and said, "I'll give you two some privacy," slipping out of the room, not before sending James a wink.

"What are you doing here?" James asked Lily once they were alone. "Bugger, did I miss a Heads meeting?" he said with a look of horror. "I'm so sorry-"

"You haven't done anything wrong," she shut him up. "For once," she added. Slowly, she brought out something in her hands from behind her back.

"My shoes!" he cried, bringing them into his arms like a loving pet. "Why did you take them?" he asked Lily confusedly.

"I wanted to put myself in them," she replied with the coyest of smiles.

James' stomach somersaulted. "And?"

"And two years ago I could have put myself in your shoes and understood you were an arrogant, bullying little sod that only cared about making trouble."

James' shoulders sagged. "Oh."

"But-"

"But!" James rejoiced. "Thank Merlin for the but!" Buts always lead to positive things.

"But," she carried on, "two years later I'm standing in your shoes and understanding you're _still_ an arrogant little sod sometimes." James looked on the verge of throwing up, until Lily went on, "_But_, you're surprisingly a great guy who's kind and makes me laugh – more _at_ you than _with_ you, mind you. And you'd do anything for your friends, even be an idiot and break laws to become an Animagus, something I will never truly forgive you for, especially on the account that I find it very admirable that you did that for Remus. And most of all, you'd do anything for me… even when I don't deserve it."

She leaned in, pausing just inches away from his lips for a moment to make him suffer. At long last she gave him the softest of kisses. James was glowing afterwards, but a smell distracted him. He sniffed his shoes.

"You sprayed these, didn't you?"

"With lavender. The stench was incredible."


	12. Here comes the sun

* * *

**12.**** Here comes the sun**

Godric's Hollow never sleeps.

There is always something going on in that cottage. Sometimes good (Harry's first steps, sex, breakfast in bed), and sometimes bad (Harry's first fall, no sex, breakfast hurled at the kitchen tiles after a petty argument).

Someone who does sleep—and a rather large amount—is Lily Potter. She insists it's beauty sleep. James insists she doesn't need it. Lily calls him sweet. James calls her a _sloth._

Lily sends him to the sofa for calling her after a rather deformed looking mammal.

"Lily. Lily, wake up. We're going to watch the sunrise together."

She buries her head under a pillow with a groan - it's far too early. "I've seen a sunrise before, you know."

"When?"

"On television." She sends her husband a sly but drowsy smile. "It was like seeing the real thing, but it hurt my retinas less. I'm going back to sleep."

"No you're not." James climbs on top of her and plants kisses all over face as a method of keeping her awake. She laughs as wandering lips meet eyelids, nostrils and earlobes. "I'm making a grand romantic gesture; you need to be awake for it."

Awake is something Lily struggles to be after Harry was crying most of last night. "Believe me, I appreciate the gesture, but I'm exhausted." She kisses the nearest part of him - his wrist - and it tickles. "I'm sorry, I'm just not a morning person."

She turns on her side and James is forced to roll off her with a pout.

Once she falls back to her beauty sleep (though James reckons if she has any more of that form of slumber she may explode from loveliness), she is swept into safe, strong arms that hold her like a hammock, and out of the bedroom they go into the break of day.

* * *

When Lily awakes again it's to the faint sound of birds chirping merrily while a light breeze prickles her skin. Familiar arms envelop her; she recognizes them as James' from the soft hairs. Her head is no longer nestled comfortably into a pillow, instead a shoulder, and opening her droopy eyes wider she yelps and clings to James like her life depends on it – which it does, because they are on the roof. _The roof._

"Oh God." She wraps her arms tighter around his neck. "Oh God, am I on the _roof?_" She glances below and feels a wave of nausea; grass and earth and pavement have never looked so far away. "Am I on the roof in my _nightie?_" She takes deep breaths and tries her very hardest not to start hyperventilating. "Get. Me. _Down._"

"Not until you turn around and look at it."

"Look at _what?_ I'm finding it hard to concentrate on anything but my impending death from falling off this roof, James-"

Gently, he cups her chin with his hand and twists her head round. She blinks and stares into the intense orange glow of the sun that absorbs her like water to sponge. She's seen a sunrise on a calendar before—April, she thinks was the month illustrated—but she doesn't quite remember it being this capturing and able to take her breath away.

Lily can't help but mutter a small, "Wow."

"Wow indeed."

She knows it's not recommended to stare into the sun without wearing at least a pair of sunglasses, but she's looking at it now as though it's the last sunrise before the world ends. It's as though it's rising now for the very first time and never will again - a natural phenomenon.

"This is marginally better than seeing it on television," she says, earning a chuckle from James.

She admires the way the sun radiates; the gleam sort of reminds her how bright James' eyes get seeing her after a long time being kept apart (an embarrassing record of two days). She has a feeling the sight before her would never seem as magnificent without a certain someone's company.

"Since I've settled in the wizarding world, I've seen some beautiful things," Lily says quietly, as though loud noises would disturb the sun in all its splendour. "There's magic to create such stunning sights…" She intertwines their fingers together. "But there's nothing as stunning as this. Nothing in the world." She looks at James with smiling eyes. He glances at her, then at the sun, then back at her again. "What?" she asks, wondering why his pupils are all over the place.

He shrugs, "Just comparing."

Lily snorts, gesturing to her bed hair. "Well, if it's a beauty contest between me and the sun, I can very much say the sun wins hands—or shall I say _rays_ down."

James just stares at her with glittering eyes. "Couldn't be more wrong," he says, and she lets out a pleasant laugh as he kisses her in the serenity of daybreak.

* * *

As ordinary, the sun rises the next morning, sky bleeding orange. But it should bleed _red. _

"_No, no, no, no,_" a godfather cries, treading through rubble that was once a pretty cottage. "_No, no, no..._"

The Potters are dead.

A boy is no longer a son, but an orphan.

Godric's Hollow finally sleeps.


	13. London Bridge

**13. London Bridge**

For every person there is a secret place they like to escape to: a park, a bedroom, a backyard, a café, a dream.

James thinks big. He chooses London Bridge.

* * *

On day when he was fourteen he endured a petty argument with his parents - nothing unusual. After storming to his room, he was so mad he couldn't keep still. He felt like punching holes in the walls. Trembling with anger, he siezed his broom and climbed out of his bedroom window. Then he mounted and flew so high he swore he could taste clouds.

He'd flown for what felt like hours, tepid afternoon turning to chilly evening, ultimately ending up airborne above London, staring down at the vast River Thames and gazing at the enchanting starry night sky reflected in its waters.

Minutes later he'd popped off his broom and sat on the edge of the bridge, feet dangling dangerously over the wall he was settled upon. There, he stared out into the city, snacking on Chocolate Frogs. No longer did he feel cross, his mood had shifted to one of calm ease as he sat in quiet reflection.

When he was finally ready, he flew home. His furiously worried parents welcomed him back, and he welcomed them with a heartfelt apology.

* * *

He never told anybody about his secret place, and he didn't plan to, until he turned sixteen and Sirius ended up on his doorstep after leaving home. James told him to grab his broom because they were going on a little trip, and left a note to his parents that they'd be back in a few hours. Unusually, Sirius didn't argue and abided, chillingly quiet throughout the flight to London.

When the boys landed on the bridge, Sirius stared at James as though he'd clearly gone insane and wasted God knows how many bloody hours of his life getting somewhere of no real interest to him. James just sat down on the edge of the bridge and patted the space next to him, a gesture for Sirius to join him. He raised an eyebrow at James, but eventually gave in, plonking down next to him and accepting a Chocolate Frog with a look of small confusion – they seemed too old to share Chocolate Frogs these days, instead sharing drinks, stories of failed conquests of girls, and jabs at one another.

"London's a shithole," Sirius had sighed at James in the middle of popping a frog in his mouth, until he turned his head, looked over at the river and breathed in the tranquillity of it all. Arm frozen in midair and mouth slightly agape, it was only until the Chocolate Frog escaped out of his hand and landed in the deep waters below with a plop and a splash he snapped him out of his trance.

He eyed a grinning James, sighed through his nose, and then stared back out at London again with a warm smile on his face. Admiring the city lights, he imagined he was in New York, because that's where everyone wanted to go, the city that never slept - and Sirius never slept, so they were perfect for each other. He wouldn't stick in England all his life, he'd travel exotic places and write letters to James boasting about all the beautiful women he'd gotten off with abroad.

All the while, the boys sat there, swinging their feet back and forth, arses growing numb, not a single word uttered. Until-

"You wanna go home?"

James was squeezing Sirius' shoulder. He snorted at James.

"Of course I don't want to go home. I don't think you've been listening to a word I've said, James. I've just _left_ home-"

"_That place_ is not your home, you stupid twat," snapped James. "Your home is where my parents are right now going berserk wondering where we are. Get it right." He grasped his broom and stood up.

Sirius stopped him. "James-"

"My house will always be — and always has been — your home, Padfoot."

Sirius looked intently at him for a moment, before bringing James into a tight hug.

"Thank you," Sirius said quietly.

"Don't be so soft," James pretended to scowl at him, shoving Sirius away. Sticking out his tongue, Sirius pretended to aim his broom at James' head. After a few minutes of wrestling and trying to push the other into the river, they headed home.

* * *

After the funeral, James brings Lily to the bridge. They sit with their touching shoulders, Lily watching James carefully out of the corner of her eye. He brings out a cigarette—something she would normally disapprove of and swipe from his fingers with a firm look—but it's been a long day and she allows it. His hands are shaking so much he can't even light it. "Fuck," he mutters under his breath, glaring at his hands in vain hope they'll stay still from the intensity of his gaze.

"Let me do it," Lily offers gently. With her wand, she says a small charm and the tip of the cigarette lights up at once.

"Thanks," he replies gratefully, bringing the cigarette to his lips. After a few blown trails of smoke, his eyes start welling up. He quickly dabs at them with his sleeve in embarrassment while Lily whispers his name and rubs up and down his arm. "Christ, you do realize you're getting together with a complete mummy's boy, Evans." Sometimes he calls her by her surname for a laugh, but this is no laughing matter.

"She was your _mother_, James. You're allowed to be upset."

He just sighs and inhales the nicotine deeper. He wonders what his mother (_She's dead. Fuck, she's really dead_) would say now if he saw him. With a bitter taste in his mouth, he rapidly stubs the thing out with a grimace covering his features. Shrugging off his jacket, he takes off his black tie, letting his fidgeting hands play with it while he stares out at London.

"Remember that nursery rhyme?" James wraps one end of the tie around one hand, and the other end round his other, the middle of the tie stretched between the both. "London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady," he sings, shoulders shaking with mirth. He's a better singer than he thinks. "How will we build it up, my fair lady?" he asks Lily.

"With silver and gold," she plays along, planting a kiss on his shoulder.

James swallows down a lump in his throat. "Gold and silver I have none," he murmurs. _Mother I have none now,_ he adds in his mind. Lily squeezes his hand.

"Build it up with needles and pins," she sings sweetly in his ear.

"Pins and needles bend." The tie strains so much between James' hands that it splits in two. "And break," he adds. He gazes down at the tie and feels very much like it at the moment - in pieces.

Sadly, Lily stares at the tie as well, then she brings out her wand and murmurs another charm. They watch as the thread almost springs alive, resembling tiny worms, joining the tie together again, good as new. Lily looks at him as if to say, _I'll fix you_, and James smiles for a brief moment.

"Build it up with wood and clay," she carries on in singsong.

"Wood and clay will wash away," he replies in a hollow voice, letting the tie go. It drops into the water and they watch it float upriver. Lily tenses as he does this. All of a sudden, she holds his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her.

"Build it up with stone so, so strong." She touches her forehead with his. "So strong it'll last so long," she adds in a whisper, almost desperate for him to feel better.

An earnest smile creeps upon James' face, and lingers, reassuring Lily he'll be okay - maybe not right this moment, but he will be eventually. "My fair lady Evans," he puts in admirably. Their love is like stone bridges that take forever to build, but survive wars and never fall, standing strong until the last breath is made.

James' eyes well up again, and Lily holds him like a mother would.


	14. Somebody's waiting for me at home

**14. Somebody's waiting for me at home**

War was like the 'other woman' in James and Lily's relationship.

There were nights when he crawled into bed at God knows what hour in the morning, the smell of battle, curses, and sweat slathering his skin, too exhausted to shower the odour away. Sometimes she'd smell blood, but it was always his own.

If she was awake (she was always awake), she'd keep deathly still (_deathly,_ Lily shuddered at that word), and pretended she was asleep. A hand would glide across her flesh, and she would try so, _so_ hard not to think about how that same hand hours earlier probably clutched a wand and fired spells to protect himself from getting killed.

And she would fail to stop thinking about it.

* * *

There were two plates of meals set out on the table yet only one had been touched - barely. Delicate fingers toyed with a decorative napkin, next the shape of the cutlery, then the rim of a wineglass, until she could no longer stare endlessly at the empty chair opposite wondering why the hell her husband was not sitting in it. She blew out the light flickering from the candles and left up the staircase of Godric's Hollow.

She gazed down at her son sleeping peacefully in his crib, but it was almost painful to. Harry looked so much like James, and his face reminded her that his father was out there fighting instead of being at home with his family where he belonged. She scooped up Harry into her arms, holding his head close so one of his warm cheeks rested against hers, rocking him in the moonlight.

"Lily?"

She turned her head rapidly thinking it was her husband, but it was Sirius at the doorway. She wasn't too disappointed; she welcomed any company lately.

"Sirius." She greeted him with the warmest of smiles. "Pray tell, when is that husband of mine getting his butt home?" When he didn't answer straight away, she thought he must have not heard her, his mind elsewhere. "Sirius?"

He appeared strangely uncomfortable unlike his usual relaxed self. "If I tell you where James is will you promise not to freak out?"

Immediately, Lily's smile vanished. She shifted Harry to rest against her shoulder so she could see Sirius better. "Where is he?"

He bit his lip before answering quietly, "He's… in St. Mungo's."

Rosy cheeks Sirius always fondly admired left Lily's face and were replaced with ghostly white ones. "He's honestly fine, though," he added with a forced smile, but jumped at the volume her voice took next.

"If he was fine he'd be at home, Sirius!"

She regretted raising her voice in front of Harry. He squirmed and Lily bounced him up and down in her arms to settle him again. It simply wasn't the time to break into tears; she had to stay strong, for Harry's sake.

"Can you look after the baby for me, Sirius?"

She'd already handed Harry over to him before he could answer, not that he would ever say no to looking after his godson. "James will be okay, Lily," he said comfortingly, but it was too late. Lily had already left the room, Disapparating with an earsplitting crack.

* * *

"Lily," James greeted his wife with a smile of surprise from his bed in St. Mungo's as she burst into the room in a flurry. "You didn't have to come down especially—hey, hey, hey, I'm okay, I'm okay…"

Any trace of a smile on his face had left; Lily had flung her arms around his neck and buried her face into his chest. To James' horror, he felt her cheeks damp with tears and rubbed her back up and down.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," he said again softly into her hair. "A Death Eater just got a lucky shot and I got a bad reaction from a hex, that's all. I'm fine; they just want to keep me in a few days to make sure." When he heard her sniffling, he sat up straighter and wrapped his arms more securely around her frame. "I'm okay, I promise," he kept repeating.

After a while of Lily clinging to him, she finally freed herself from her husband, settling into the chair next to his bed. She stared up into James' sickly face and found her eyes welling up again. Despite his current condition, he shot her the usual handsome grin that always made her swoon back in Hogwarts.

"James," her voice was quietly careful but unyielding, "I want you to stop."

He looked amused as he played with her fingers in his hand. "Stop being this handsome in my hospital gown?" he smirked.

"Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about." He released her hand when her fingers seemed unresponsive to his touch. "I want you to stop fighting."

He blinked at her. Surely this was a joke? Lily's stare said otherwise. "You're basically telling me… to forget all my principles and stop being who I am," he concluded, brow furrowed.

"I'm not telling you to stop being who you are, I just want you to stop being the hero for once!" Lily pleaded with desperation. "You have a baby now," she reminded him.

James fell silent for a moment; Lily could tell images of their son had filled his head. "I'm sure if Harry were old enough he'd understand," he responded quickly in a steady voice.

"But there are _other_ people who can fight!"

James raised his voice to her level. "But I'd rather do it myself and do a better job of it!"

Lily almost laughed. "_That_ is exactly why I'm scared, James!" She was standing now, more distraught than ever. "And it's why I'm scared for Sirius too, because you're exactly like him! You're both so cocky sometimes that when you're so wrapped up in your self-assurance you don't think you have to try as hard, and then you slip up!"

James closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, sure all this wasn't good for his health. "Can we please not talk about this right now?" he implored, worried a Medi-Witch might walk in on them blaring their heads off. "Where's Harry?" he questioned, clearly thwarted she had not brought him along with him. "I want to see my boy."

"He's with Sirius," Lily answered in a hollow voice. "I suppose you should see him as much as you can now since you're going to get yourself killed soon at the rate you're going-"

"I'm _not_ going to get myself killed. I am not that stupid-"

"Oi, Mister and Mrs," Sirius interrupted them both from the doorway. Gently bouncing Harry in his arms, he eyed the flustered couple tensely. If he'd knocked, they hadn't heard him. "All of London can hear you two," he complained in jest. "Kiddy's in the room," he gestured to Harry, "so no arguing allowed."

"There's my boy!" James beckoned Sirius and Harry over.

"I'm a man now," Sirius grinned, and James pulled a face at him. Taking the hint from James' outspread hands, Sirius passed Harry over. Sirius rolled his eyes when James blew a raspberry at Harry and he giggled in response, his health almost increasing with Harry in the room. All the while, Lily frowned James in incredulity.

"I don't know how you can look him in the face right now, James."

Before he could register what Lily had said or what was happening, Harry was swept back into his mother's arms and he was staring into empty, longing hands in his lap. "Lily, please," he beseeched, but she'd already pushed passed Sirius and left the room taking Harry with her. James sighed and buried his face in his hands.

"I think she's right, you know."

James glanced upwards and scowled at Sirius from across the room. "Not you too," he snapped.

"Don't get pissed off by the fact that we love you, Prongs," Sirius shot back at him as he sat down in the chair Lily was sitting in earlier. The fierceness in James' eyes had disappeared at Sirius' words. "She's just frightened of losing you," Sirius went on gentler. "It's alright for me; nobody would miss me if I went. But you've got a family, James. If something happened to you-"

"_I'd_ miss you, you gigantic idiot," James interrupted him with a frown, the whole subject upsetting him. Truthfully, he felt too young to be talking about this - _death_. They hadn't even hit thirty yet.

"I should let you get some sleep," Sirius stood up and made for the door. "Think about what she said, will you?"

James didn't want to think about what Lily said; James wanted to think he was invincible so Lily wouldn't have to worry so much. "Alright," he nodded nonetheless, eyelids growing heavy as he drifted to sleep.

Lily returned to James' room an hour later. They'd both apologized to each other, kissed and made up, but the matter of James fighting had not been brought up. He thought she finally accepted the reality that he would fight as long as this war lasted. She thought the St. Mungo's scare had knocked some sense into him, that being with his son was more important than fighting the wicked.

Both were wrong.

* * *

"It's good to be back."

Fully recovered, James was allowed home from St. Mungo's a few days later. He looked round Godric's Hollow and smiled widely. Lily nodded into his chest in agreement, and then wandered off to the with Harry in her arms to make a cup of tea.

She was pouring the kettle when she heard voices back in the living room. Furtively, she peeked back into the room and spotted James talking to a head in the fireplace. They were speaking hurriedly in low tones, and Lily only caught the word "attack" and the end of the conversation by James saying determinedly, "I'll be right there," then the head disappeared. Spinning round, he was startled to see Lily suddenly at the doorway. She predicted what he was going to say next.

"There's been an attack on Hogsmeade. I have to go, you know I do."

"_James,_ you've _only_ just come out of hospital!"

She gawked at him from across the room as she thought frantically of things she could do to stop him from leaving, but she knew it was pointless. James had already grabbed his cloak and his wand was at the ready. Seizing her by the shoulders, he murmured, "_Please understand,_" resting his forehead against hers.

Lily had understood long ago, it had just been so difficult to comprehend. Unwillingly, she nodded, and James pulled her into a hug, awash with relief. He kissed her in gratitude, pecking Harry's cheek afterwards.

"Be careful," Lily warned him as he scooped up a handful of Floo Powder and threw it into the fireplace. James just flashed her a grin.

"I always am."

And then he vanished into the green flames.

* * *

He hadn't managed to catch a Death Eater (that was always his goal every battle; he wanted to capture every one of them), but he'd fought well. There was no way he was going to end up in St. Mungo's again (panic Lily to the point of tears again), which is why he'd fought harder, quicker and harder with spells so no Death Eater would catch him off guard. But there had still been casualties. Together, James and Sirius searched the streets of Hogsmeade looking for wounded to help, and hoping not to find any.

"Dad!"

Sirius was busy distracted helping an old wizard to his feet so only James looked for the source of the call. He spotted a child, maybe five or six, clinging to what he guessed was his father on the ground from the boy's distressed cries slicing through the air. Had the man been knocked unconscious? James ran forward to lend a hand…

He stopped when he saw the man's face up close. His eyes were open, but there was no life there…

"Dad!" Tears spilled from the boy's cheeks as he huddled over the man. As the child started to shake his lifeless body by the shoulders, James felt sick as he covered his open mouth.

"James." Sirius had arrived at side, registering what had happened from the limpness of the wizard and the way his chest did not rise and fall. Realizing James couldn't do anything, feet glued to the cold cement as he wore a glazed expression, Sirius hurried forward and swept the boy into his arms. The child struggled for a moment, thrashing and kicking out as he sobbed, but Sirius refused to let the boy go as he picked him from off the ground and away from the dead body. Stranger or not, the boy buried his head into Sirius' chest and bawled. "It's okay, kid. It's okay..." he hushed the boy.

Some time later Hogsmeade was cleared as much it could be, the injured sent to St. Mungo's, and the dead… James didn't want to think about the dead. James and Sirius stared out into the empty streets; Sirius noticed James hadn't stopped looking at the exact spot where the small boy from before had hugged his dead father.

Not being able to stand the silence and James' stupor any long, Sirius murmured, "Long day, huh."

"Long day," James nodded in agreement. When his gaze still seemed cemented on a certain patch of ground, Sirius elbowed him, and he staggered a little, snapping out of his trance. Sirius raised his brow at him, but James just sighed and looked to the horizon.

"Padfoot, I'm glad that if I ever got killed in battle, you would do the same for Harry like you did with that child today."

"I'd do my best," Sirius shrugged, "I'm no father figure, James, but I'd do my best."

Sirius' best seemed good enough - even perfect for James.

"Fancy a drink?" Sirius asked, gesturing towards the pub, but he already knew James' answer.

"Sorry, I can't. Somebody's waiting for me at home."

* * *

Moments later James was back at Godric's Hollow, shrugging off his robes and lifting baby Harry into his strong arms. He sat in bed where Lily lay sprawled across the matress sleeping, her long red hair spilling across the bedsheets. He rested his back against the headboard, one hand holding Harry, the other stroking the top of Lily's head.

"Your mummy's mad at me," James whispered to Harry, bringing him close to his face so he could feel Harry's warm breaths against his cheeks. "She's mad at me for putting my life in danger, but she doesn't understand…" He released a small chuckle as Harry reached out to touch his face with his tiny hands. "You understand, don't you?"

Harry just looked up at him with the roundest of green eyes. They reminded him of looking into Lily's soul.

"I just want to make this world a better place for you to live in," he continued resolutely, gazing at his son. Anything Harry did he found beautiful: opening and closing his hands, gurgling, even him blinking was entrancing to watch.

All of a sudden, he hugged Harry to his chest and whispered, voice shaky, "There's no way you'll be that boy I saw today, Harry. _No way_," kissing his forehead and shutting his eyes tight.


	15. The Art of Cookery

**15. The art of cookery**

"Did you _bake our son?_"

After returning home one afternoon to find his wife in the kitchen, (which just so happened to be in an absolute state of disarray, every surface covered with homemade cakes and biscuits, Harry suspiciously nowhere to be found), asking whether their son had been popped into the oven along with a batch of muffins was a likely question.

James Potter picked up a cupcake and sniffed it; he could smell a slight trace of Harry if he inhaled hard enough…

"Of course I didn't bake him," Lily rolled her eyes from the counter she was rolling dough on. "He's over there," she gestured to behind a pyramid of stacked pumpkin pasties.

James poked his head round; Harry was sitting in his highchair, a small plate of cauldron cakes placed in front of him, his mouth a messy brown and his face a vibrant green. At the sight of his father, Harry decided to burst into tears.

"Oh, nice to see you, too," answered James, picking up Harry and rubbing his back in soothing circles. "I'm saving you from the crazy cooking lady," he whispered low in his ear, but not low enough.

"I heard that," Lily pretended to glare at him, rolling the dough harder.

"Lily," James looked around the room, "I was only gone an hour and somehow you've managed to turn our kitchen into a bakery."

He wouldn't have minded Lily's newfound cooking obsession - he liked cake as much as the next person. But it was the fact that she couldn't cook _well_ (or even _mildly well_) that was the problem. He was too soft to tell her she was a terrible chef; he reckoned she should have understood by herself from the trays upon trays of uneaten, burnt and inedible food collecting in every corner of the room.

Lily became so batty over cooking that James was forced to break the oven when she finally left the room for a toilet break after seven hours. When she came back and found the oven mysteriously blown up, she burst into a flood of tears. Completely unprepared for such a distraught reaction, James suggested they pop over to Remus and Sirius' home and use their oven as an alternative. She instantly stopped crying.

"Hullo,'" Lily, James and baby Harry arrived at Remus and Sirius' doorstep soon after.

"This is a nice surprise," Sirius replied at the doorway in a manner which more than suggested it wasn't at all pleasant. "What brings your lovely selves here?"

Lily just smiled widely, handed Remus a plate of cakes, and invited herself inside.

"Why of course you can come in, Mrs. Potter, thank you for asking," Sirius rolled his eyes. After hearing that, Lily backed up, gave Sirius' cheek a small peck, and all was forgiven as he stared after her down the hall. "I hate it when women do that," he muttered when she was out of earshot, wiping his cheek. "Dirty trick…"

"More cake?" groaned Remus as James stepped inside with Harry in his arms. James shrugged helplessly in response. "We're, um, still kind of struggling to eat that last batch of cakes Lily made…"

"Is that what they were?" snorted Sirius. "I thought they were paperweights."

The sounds of clangs and clanks coming from the kitchen split the air. The men looked at each other as they lingered in the hallway, probably the safest place at that moment.

"What is that wife of yours doing, Prongs?" Sirius asked eventually.

"The oven in our house broke," James explained with a sigh. "Lily's using yours as a substitute."

"You broke it on purpose, didn't you?" Sirius guessed accurately, but the air was ripped again by another sound.

"Can someone give me a hand in here, please?"

James and Sirius quickly looked upon Remus.

"Why do I have to go?" he complained, but they give him no explanation, shoving him in the direction of the kitchen.

"If I go back in there," Sirius whispered to James in the hall, "and find Moony on the kitchen floor bleeding to death and missing a hand, and your crazy wife standing over him with a bread knife, I'm holding you personally responsible."

James rolled his eyes. "She's become a cooking enthusiast, not a murderer."

"It's the same thing with your wife's awful baking skills," Sirius muttered under his breath.

A girlish scream came from the kitchen; judging by the alarmed look on Sirius' face there was an equal chance that such a high pitched cry could have been made from either Lily or Remus – in fact, _especially Remus. _

James and Sirius quickly rushed into the room. Remus wasn't on the floor; however, his chest was covered in a thick red.

"Calm down," Remus said as Sirius collapsed to the ground in a snivelling mess. "It's just strawberry jam Lily spilt on me."

After that incident, James, Lily and baby Harry were politely asked to leave. James was forced to fix the oven to keep Lily satisfied.

In the early hours of one morning, James woke from bed with a start. Listening closely, he could hear the sound of..._whisking?_ He turned over and groaned at the sight of the empty half of the bed. _Surely_ Lily wasn't up at this hour? After throwing the duvet off himself a little harsher than necessary, he made his way downstairs.

He stepped into the kitchen rubbing drowsily at his eyes underneath the glasses only just perching on his nose. Lily's back was facing him as she stirred cake mix in a bowl in front of the window overlooking the garden, all the while standing alone in the dark.

"Lily, what are you doing?" asked James redundantly, because it was pretty clear what she was doing: she was cooking single-handedly in the dark, and something was very wrong with that. "Come back to bed."

Lily glimpsed at him from behind her shoulder, and then carried on staring despondently out of the window as her hand continuously circled the bowl. "What are you doing up?" she asked quietly.

"Funnily enough, the whole neighbourhood can hear you whisking," James remarked from the doorway, then walked over to her. As his arms encircled her neck from behind, he spotted her whisking become sloppy - but she didn't stop, even when he started nuzzling her neck. "Come back to bed," he beckoned.

"In a minute."

"_Now_," dared James playfully.

He should have known it was a mistake to be mischievous at this time of the morning. Lily just blinked and replied stiffly, "Just…go back to bed, James."

His arms left her neck and fell to his sides. "You look exhausted," he said with a frown.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine-"

"_I'm fine!_" Lily snapped. James' patience couldn't be tested any longer.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked irritably.

"Nothing," Lily said, adopting a calmer voice, "is the matter with me," and started pouring cake mix into paper cases. James couldn't believe a cupcake case was getting more attention and consideration than he was. He ran his hand jadedly through his hair and sighed.

"Lily, I can't take this anymore. Will you please stop cooking for one second? I leave the house in the morning and you're cooking, I come home and you're still cooking - it's driving me up the bloody wall-"

"What would you rather I do, James?" Lily's voice had drastically risen as she turned on him with fierce eyes. "Would you rather I sit on an armchair in front of the fireplace and worry endlessly about you fighting in a war and putting your life on the line everyday?"

Cooking had finally been brought to a standstill, but James almost wished she had carried on tending to paper cupcake cases as her heated stare with him from across the room rendered his motionless and speechless. His eyes had widened at the mention of the war against Voldemort and his dangerous position as a member of the Order; he hadn't considered for one second that this whole cooking malarkey had anything to do with him fighting.

"Or," Lily continued quieter, "would you rather I cook to distract myself?"

James said nothing but looked at her sadly. At the spectacle of his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to come up with something intelligible to say, Lily replied as though he had agreed to the latter of her options of how to cope with him when he wasn't at home, "Of course you would. Now go to bed and let me finish this."

She whipped round and commenced filling paper cases with cake mix again. When the room filled with such a deathlike silence, she figured James had at long last seen sense and left. She sucked in a breath of surprise when she felt James touch her elbow.

"Do you wanna hand?" he asked softly.

"What?" Lily answered barely above a whisper.

"Do. You. Want. A. Hand?" he repeated with a smile. "Or an arm? Or even a leg? How about a foot? Take any part of me you want-"

"Stop it," Lily told him as she began to laugh.

As she reached for a rolling pin, his hand settled snugly on top of hers. "I mean it," he told her. "Let me help."

There was a pause, then Lily gave a little nod and handed him a spoon. "Thank you," she said appreciatively.

After a minute of vigorous rolling of dough by James, and Lily quietly chuckling at such a display, a thumb appeared out of his nowhere and rubbed Lily's nose.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"You had flour on your nose," James explained. "I adore you, you crazy cook of a wife of mine," he added close to her ear.

"I wish you'd _adore_ my cooking." She stuck her tongue out at him.

James touched his face briefly to scratch his chin and ended up with a beard made of flour. Lily didn't point it out and only commented he needed a shave in the morning, which only made James rub his chin more in bewilderment.

After finally falling asleep at the kitchen counter at four a.m., James carried a snoring Lily back upstairs.


	16. Dear Padfoot, thank you, thank you

**16. Dear Padfoot, thank you, thank you**

Lily placed the porcelain vase upon the side table and immediately regretted her decision putting it there--putting it _anywhere_ out in the open. It looked beyond unsightly. The flowery print that covered the surface of the ceramic looked as though it belonged on a hideous curtain. She shifted the vase an inch to the left. Perhaps it wouldn't look so bad from a different angle?

"That's _ghastly_."

Lily jumped and clenched the edge of the table in surprise. The table shook slightly, and the vase looked on the verge of toppling over until her hands shot out and wrapped round the base to steady the porcelain. Once it was still again, she let the vase go and threw a glare over her shoulder.

"Sorry," her husband apologized. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"That was close." Lily shifted the vase an inch back to the right.

"What is that?" enquired James.

"It's that vase my sister got us for Christmas, remember?"

He scowled as he was reminded why it was familiar. "I thought you stuffed that in the attic."

"I felt guilty leaving it lie up there gathering dust."

James hadn't felt at all guilty; Lily really did feel at fault for the most bizarre things sometimes. "It looks a cross between a chamber pot and an urn of ashes," he commented unsavourily.

"Just be glad I didn't put it in our bedroom," Lily responded, and James shuddered at the idea of it watching over him as he slept. "My sister always did have _such_ good taste… especially in men." She shivered unpleasantly at the thought of Vernon Dursley. She left the vase alone for a moment to scrutiny James.

"Where's Harry?" she asked all of a sudden.

James didn't answer straight away; he was too busy staring at the patch of floor in the living room and being alarmed that Harry was not occupying it as he was five seconds ago when James had been sat on the rug playing with him and their pet cat. Snitch - the Potter's red mackerel tabby cat – looked up at James with the roundest of eyes.

"Did you eat Harry?" he asked Snitch, kneeling down to pet her.

"If she did I hardly think rewarding her by stroking her around the ears is appropriate, James."

Suddenly, there was a _whoosh_ sound and James and Lily looked to the doorway. A black-haired baby had rocketed into the room on a toy broomstick two feet off the ground. James grinned as Harry zoomed about the room roaring with laughter, stretching just in time for Harry to whiz between his legs like an archway.

"I thought you put his broom away," Lily sent James a scolding look.

"I did!" James applauded as Harry did an impressive Sloth Grip Roll in the air by accident. "He must have got it out himself."

Lily laughed at him, "He's only one!"

Snitch howled as giddy Harry headed straight for her. The cat narrowly missed death, jumping out of Harry's way and scampering behind the sofa for safety. The number of heart attacks Snitch had experienced since Harry got his present from his Godfather suggested the cat only had one out of nine lives left.

"He's going to be the best Quidditch player in the land!" James cheered Harry on. "Even better than his daddy-!"

"_James!_"

Lily covered her face with her hands in horror; Harry was inches away from colliding with the side table. James managed to dash across the room just in time to sweep him off the toy broom and into his arms out of harm's way. Meanwhile, the broom hurtled into the legs of the side table, and as it wobbled unbalanced, the vase from Petunia slid and crashed to the floor in an array of pieces.

Lily let out a gasp, whilst Harry stuck his thumb in his mouth and stared innocently at his parents.

"That's unfortunate," James lied, bobbing Harry rhythmically up and down in his arms and mouthing a grateful _thank you_ to him.

"It's fine," Lily finally spoke after getting over her initial shock. "I can fix it-"

"No, you can't."

She frowned at James; she was a woman who did not like being told what she could not to do. "What do you mean I can't? All I have to do is cast Reparo-"

"You can't. Reparo won't work. No spell will fix the vase. It's a _special_ vase that cannot be mended once broken. There's nothing we can do. How regrettable. Unlucky. Lamentable! Are you catching my drift here?"

"You're awful," Lily said between laughs.

"I'm a genius," James countered with a sly grin. "Say goodbye to Auntie Petunia's vase, Harry."

Lily smiled fondly as James moved Harry's small floppy hand to form a small wave. James flicked his wand, and Harry watched fascinated as the broken pieces of porcelain floated in the air and shot off in direction of the nearest bin.

Once the floor was clean again, James watched Harry wriggle restlessly for his broom back. To James, it was almost painful to see the two – boy and broom – separated.

"No, James," Lily said before he even asked. "Dinner's nearly ready. He shouldn't be flying so soon before food."

"Just five minutes, love?"

James met her with pleading eyes; Harry wore a similar look, except his was more perfected for a one year old, his eyes welling up with tears.

"Oh alright!" she surrendered, and James planted a wet, soppy kiss on her cheek as a thank you. "Keep a close eye on him, though."

When James raised the miniature broomstick in the air, the handle vibrated as though it were physically alive, tingling with excitement at the prospect of being ridden. Carefully, he set down Harry onto the broom, and quicker than a snap of the fingers he exploded off with energy around the room. His thrilled laughter could be heard throughout the house.

"I have an idea!" James announced to Lily as he hurried out of the room, and moments later returned with a camera.

"Now, Harry," James addressed the blur whizzing about the living room. "Look into the lens now. Harry. Harry, no, this way--Harry? Harry, look at daddy."

It was no use, Harry was moving too fast, his flying was all over the place. James set the camera down on the floorboards and set off to chase after Harry, who was only smiling harder at this point, as though finding pleasure in his father's torment of not being to grab hold of him.

Lily was sat down behind a desk now, trying her hardest not to double over with laughter as James dived spectacularly onto the sofa to avoid a pile-up. Terrified the Potters' only son was on the loose again, Snitch climbed onto Lily's lap and buried her head into her stomach for protection. Lily smiled amusedly at the tabby cat and comforted her with petting until she began to purr.

"Harry!" James was knelt on the floor, holding the camera up against his face. "That's it, Harry! This way! Look this way—oof!" He tumbled backwards as Harry bashed into him. Lily was about to rush over and check if either of them was hurt, but James was on his back in hysterics while Harry giggled sprawled out on his stomach.

Smiling to herself, Lily spread a clean piece of parchment flat against the desk. Hand warm, she dipped the tip of a quill into a pot of rich, black ink, and began to write.

_Dear Padfoot,_

_Thank you, thank you…_


End file.
